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I'm having my main kitchen redone and I chose two sets of deep drawer cabinets. I haven't ordered the cabinets yet because we're still doing electrical.. anyway.. I guess the drawer cabinets are both about 3 ft wide and have two drawers each. I'm debating whether to go with one deep drawer cabinet and get pull outs for the rest, or go with the two. What do you think? Aside from pots and pans, what do you keep in those drawers?
My drawer bank sets between my stove and my sink (oh...it's 24", not 21"). Top drawer (shallow) has things like cooking utensils except the real fat ones (like potato masher). Knives are in there; temperature probes, can opener. The middle drawer: spatulas, practique mixer, hand mixer and beaters, pot & pan lids (numerous), large spoons, oven mitts, pyrex measuring cups, other measuring cups. The bottom drawer has all the wax, saran, foil papers, zip locks, rolling pins, sieves (large and small) and the potato masher. Everything is right there, easy to fetch, especially while something is cooking on the stove and I need it now - without bending over or walking across the kitchen. A 36" will probably give you plenty of room for pots and pans (I keep mine on hooks in the pantry), and mixing bowls, too. Get the model with two deep drawers. Three if there is one. You can always compartmentalize a very large drawer. Remember, some cabinetry of late has very shallow top and even middle drawers which will not hold anything thicker than silverware; so deep drawers are important.
I use under counter cabinets very little anymore - I store my little used tools in there. Too much fuss to crawl down under there. But then again, I have a full height, full depth 30" pantry, too. And a corner lazy susan. Those two things put an end to me crawling under the counter to dig into 24" deep cabinets.
We have super susans in our lower corner cabinets - no post in the middle to get in the way. I use those cabinets for odd things that I use, but not every day - the blender, large dishes, etc. They work really well.
The other thing we have in our kitchen that I really like is a microwave that is NOT over the stove. It is underneath the normal cupboards, with a drawer underneath. So the microwave is about 8 inches above the counter - a good height for me. There is a small counter area in front of the drawer, which serves as a landing area for hot dishes.
My kitchen not huge but it's layout works great, has tones of storage and space for everything, large deep pull out draws under the cook-top to store all pots, pans! We love it..It was custom built, we went with solid cherry wood cabinets! The cabinet maker we hired did a great job, his works guaranteed for the life of him. He went over us with his ideals, after viewing are old kitchen and what wasn't working for us with it current layout etc, etc.. We gained a window as well over the sink and island that we love! .
My kitchen not huge but it's layout works great, has tones of storage and space for everything, large deep pull out draws under the cook-top to store all pots, pans! We love it..It was custom built, we went with solid cherry wood cabinets! The cabinet maker we hired did a great job, his works guaranteed for the life of him. He went over us with his ideals, after viewing are old kitchen and what wasn't working for us with it current layout etc, etc.. We gained a window as well over the sink and island that we love! .
We have a lazy susan corner cabinet that we put our pots & pans (and lids) in. Big ones on the bottom shelf and smaller ones & lids on the top. It works.
What goes in their space though? Even if inefficient isn't that better than empty space? There are always specialty items that are used infrequently but you still need.
Do what you like but I'm just saying that I wouldn't recommend a corner cabinet as the most efficient use of space in a kitchen, generally speaking. I'm sure that there are exceptions.
My kitchen has zero corner cabinets, so it's not like they're inevitably part of a kitchen design. But if I had to have a corner cabinet (and yes, some kitchen layouts end up with them out of necessity) I would definitely put in a Lazy Susan. My point though is that it's possible to do away with corner cabinets completely sometimes, which is what I was able to do, thankfully.
We did away with an awkward L shaped counter and cabinet, and were then able to actually expand our counter space by adding a large island since the L shaped counter and lower cabinets were both now gone. Hope you can see that visual.
Here are two pictures - before and after. Not sure if you can see but in the first picture there is an L shaped bar and a short, awkward island. In the after picture we've done away with the L shaped bar/peninsula, and now have a much longer island, with tons of storage space in it. We were able to do away with the corner and the lazy susan and now have two lower fully functional cabinets. In fact, we were able to put our trashcan in one of the lower cabinets, giving us even more floor space.
Also note, in the first picture, the HATED corner "pantry." That is now a squared off cabinet with the spice cabinet on the front and slide out shelves around the side which hold "all things pantry." We also incorporated a deep but shallow (short) drawer in between the sliding shelves at about waist level, and that drawer holds all our aluminum foil, plastic wrap, baggies, etc.
Last edited by KathrynAragon; 09-01-2016 at 12:50 PM..
My retirement home needs to have a big, roomy kitchen with wood floor and big windows. It's an emotional need: after a lifetime of tiny apartment kitchens, I dream of such a experience. Oh, and I want it all customized to meet the needs of someone under 5 feet tall.
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