We have now been living here for 17 months so have well and truly experienced the full range of seasons. Despite having some basic ideas of changes we wanted to make to the house and garden from the time we moved in, we feel that it is good to be informed by the experience of actually living in the house for a full year.

There will be a number of changes over the next 6 months or so but the first one begins next week. I think this is the one I am most excited about.

The butlers pantry and the walk-in wardrobe share a common wall and make an L-shape on the relevant section of the floor plan below.

The wall between the pantry and the walk-in wardrobe will be removed and the wall behind the sink in the pantry will be extended. This will effectively double the size of the pantry and halve the size of the walk-in wardrobe.

The extended pantry will have a long bench on one side with 2 sets of deep drawers below it and the other side will consist of open shelving.

These are a couple of views of the current pantry. It is good but more space will be wonderful.

Looking from the kitchen directly into the pantry. None of this will functionally change. The extension will be on the right-hand side of the sink.

This is the wall that will be removed. The bench and shelving above will continue as will the floor-to-ceiling shelving on the other side.

I cannot wait to have more space and I will be able to rehome the storage buckets of bulk flour, seeds, nuts and dried fruit that are currently in the wardrobe of the spare room.

Of course, there is a trade-off. A smaller walk-in wardrobe is not an issue. The existing space is huge and could almost be regarded as a dressing room although we do not use it as such.

We have managed to spread things out to almost fill the space but we know that we can utilise the smaller space much more effectively as we will install modular hanging rails and shelving to easily accommodate our clothes. Additionally, there are 2 other bedrooms with wardrobes if we find that we need to hang out-of-season coats and jackets. The mirror will go and the shelving/hanging rails will be fitted on the side (about half the length) where the existing rails are as well across the end where the mirror is currently positioned. We have a full-length mirror in the hall near the front entrance so do not really need the second one.

During the next week we will need to move everything out of the wardrobe so that it does not get covered in plaster dust. The wardrobe and bed in the guest bedroom will accommodate most of it.

The pantry is not as much of an issue as everything on the open shelves is in sealed packets or containers but some of the things at the end near the wall removal will need to be moved out of the way. The builder has estimated about 10 days for the work so I am prepared for a bit of disruption. I am confident that it will be worth it when the job is completed.