Downside to high countertops? (counter top, ceiling, shower, sink)

[cohdane]

We're considering buying a house and I noticed the counters and cabinets are higher than any I've ever encountered (I'm going back tomorrow to measure exactly how high they are).

Has anyone lived with a kitchen that had high counters? Was it awful?

Just trying to figure out how big a deal this will or won't be.

Thanks.

[PNW-type-gal]

The spouse and I are both near 6 foot tall (me slightly under, him slightly over) and all of our kitchen counter tops are built a couple inches higher than standard. Great for us, not so great for my 5-foot-nothing mother-in-law.

If the counters are too high for you, it's hard to get the right motion chopping things and really hard to knead dough - that's about it.

[Flamingo13]

Regular height are annoying to me - being just about 5'

I don't know why you are finding higher than average unless as the previous poster said, they are both tall so had them built higher.

In general though, as to your quetion. YES, that will be annoying to most people.

[gentlearts]

Ours are built higher too. Only one person looking at our house has even noticed it. I guess you need to stand at it to see if it is awkward for you. You may find that it is still OK. The old building standards are sort of archaic for today's humans, so the height may be still fine for you.
We have the opposite problem in that the world seems to be geared for pigmys.

[desertsun41]

Im curious to know how you get the additional height. All...bar none cabinet manufacturers build and sell base cabinets that are 34.5" tall. Add to that an inch and a half top and you have your standard 36" high cabinets. Which is any states code. Bathroom vanitys are 31.5" high with adult height vanitys being the same height as kitchens.

Either some one made your countertop 4 or 5 or more inches thick or some one made custom (and I use that word loosly) made base cabinets that are above standard and therefore not meeting any KCMA standards nor code.

I have done ADA kitchens for handicapped people which are obviously lower with special access areas but I would not even be allowed to do base cabinets over 36". Because by all state codes the uppers must be 18" above the countertop. If the countertop was even an extra 5 inches then the average person would not even be able to reach more then the first shelf in the uppers.

[PNW-type-gal]

Our cabinets are custom - 38" total height, with a 3" kick. It meant a special trim piece had to be cut to go between the top of the dishwasher and the bottom of the top counter, and that's about it.

We have a 9' ceiling - the west and south walls are mostly casement windows over the sink and counters, with only a shallow (10" deep) spice cabinet next to the stove (that meets the 18" set back). The east wall is a large plate/dish cabinet that comes all the way down to the counter top, with pull-out breadboard underneath.

[Flamingo13]

Hey, I resemble that remark NOT all folks are Amazons, LOL.

Originally Posted by gentlearts

Ours are built higher too. Only one person looking at our house has even noticed it. I guess you need to stand at it to see if it is awkward for you. You may find that it is still OK. The old building standards are sort of archaic for today's humans, so the height may be still fine for you.
We have the opposite problem in that the world seems to be geared for pigmys.

[PNW-type-gal]

At the other house, I was always hunched over in the kitchen - at the stove, at the sink. I do a lot of cooking and preserving, and my back got tired of it. Now I can work without stooping over.

Some day, a decade or two down the road, we'll sell the house, and then I'll either have to redo the kitchen before we sell it, sell it to someone else tall or sell it as-is with an allowance (while seductively whispering "you could design your very own custom kitchen, with colors and features that you'd enjoy.....").

The rest of the house is ADA compliant - 4' wide doors, hallways, no-step showers, barrier-free (well, except the front entry stairs).

[Tesaje]

Standard height counters are good for standard height people. Tall people get back aches using standard height counters and very short people have trouble with them. If I thought I would never move from my house, I would add 2-4 inches to my counters and yes it takes some custom construction to get them like that. But as I hope to sell in 2-3 years, there's no way I will do anything but standard. I'm only 5'7" and standard height counters give me a back ache.

[PNW-type-gal]

Originally Posted by Tesaje

Standard height counters are good for standard height people. Tall people get back aches using standard height counters and very short people have trouble with them. If I thought I would never move from my house, I would add 2-4 inches to my counters and yes it takes some custom construction to get them like that. But as I hope to sell in 2-3 years, there's no way I will do anything but standard. I'm only 5'7" and standard height counters give me a back ache.

One of the options is just to have them built up on a base - so you still have higher counters, but they are standard height for construction, so no extra cost. Appliances have to be built up on little boxes to sit right w/ respect to the cabinets.

One of the things that didn't work out in our layout is that I'd have loved to have had the dishwasher built up, so that loading and unloading didn't mean bending over. I've seen them in other kitchens and thought it was a great idea.