The butler's pantry

butler's pantry: A utility room in a large house, primarily used to store serving items, rather than food. Traditionally, a butler's pantry was used for storage, cleaning and counting of silver...In modern homes, butler's pantries are usually located in transitional spaces between kitchens and dining rooms, and used as staging areas for serving meals. They commonly contain countertops, and storage for tableware, serving pieces, table linens, candles, wine, and other dining-room articles. (Wikipedia)

As Joan posted after Saturday's open house, the historic Casa de Parley Johnson is a beautiful old house with large sunlit rooms and surrounding balconies. But the room that drew the most sighs, at least from the women, was the butler's pantry.

Imagine having all this storage space for all your fine dinnerware. (Imagine having that much dinnerware!) And all that counter space for setting out the food to be served, and that huge double-sink. Notice the extremely wide drawers on the bottom right—you can store your tablecloths in these drawers with a minimum of folds and wrinkles.

Even without the butler, the thought of it made us all a little envious!