Helping you choose the best cabinets for your kitchen
Customizing Your Kitchen Storage
Whether you’re building a new kitchen or updating an old one, there are many ways to improve your storage capacity by customizing your cabinets. That doesn’t mean you necessarily need custom cabinets – even stock cabinets come with a variety of accessories which can be added. And there are many accessories which can be retro-fitted to existing cabinets to make them work more efficiently for storage.
Drawers, Roll-outs and Pull-outs
The traditional form of storage in base cabinets is a door with shelves behind it, often with a drawer at the top. The only easy access items in cabinets like this are in the drawer or on the upper shelf, at the very front. For everything else, you have to get down on your hands and knees on the floor and dig around in the cabinet. It’s hard to even remember what’s back there, let alone get it out and use it!
There are three main ways to solve this problem.
- “All drawers”. This means that you have a stack of three or four drawers, deeper ones at the bottom, as wide as the base cabinet. With modern heavy-duty drawer slides, even a 36″ wide, 12″ deep drawer pulls out and slides back in easily and can be loaded up with a lot of stuff. Drawers are about the easiest access you can get to closed storage: one movement and it’s open, a push of the knee and it’s closed. Soft close hardware means no banging, either. Some people worry about being able to what’s in the drawer when looking at things from the top instead of the side, but it turns out not to be a problem: it’s easy to label the tops of containers if you need to, many commercial packages have the name on the top anyway, and it’s also easy to store things on their sides. Baking trays and shallow baking dishes are particularly convenient when stored on their sides in a deep drawer with dividers, almost like a filing drawer.
- Roll out tray shelves. These are like drawers with low sides and fronts, but they are behind doors inside the cabinet. While they give much better access than plain shelves, you do have to open the door and then pull out the shelf, making them slightly less easy to access than drawers. However, if you prefer the look of doors, they are a big improvement over standard shelves.
- Pull outs. In this case, a set of shelves is attached to the back of the door, and the whole lot rolls out on heavy-duty slides when you pull on the door. These are often used for pantries. You can adjust the height of each shelf to pack the most into the space, and you can see and reach right to the back. The downside is that access is from the side, so you need to be able to get at both sides of the fitting when it’s pulled out.
Interior Fittings for Pantries
A pantry needs different treatment depending on whether it’s a walk-in or step-in separate closet, or a cabinet in the main kitchen.
For the closet (or small room) type of pantry with a closable door, the usual storage fittings are open shelves, since the closed door will keep much of the household dust at bay, as well as hiding the hodge-podge of items on the shelves. Some walk-in or step-in pantries include base cabinets, counters, wall cabinets, even sinks and countertop appliances – almost like a second small kitchen! Butlers pantries especially tend to be this wey. Open shelves have the potential to have storage accessories of their own: bins hung underneath like drawers, hanging or standing wire shelves, etc.
The pantry door also has storage potential if it’s not glass: there are many hanging racks which will fit on the back of the door to hold small or light objects. Watch out for can racks though – you’ll need a solid door and good fasteneings to hold the weight.
Cabinet pantries are usually fitted with pull-out or roll-out shelves as described above, but you can also create a pantry with drawers below and pull-outs above, or use a set of unfolding narrow shelves which make every part accessible but take up rather more internal space than the wire pullout racks.
Backsplash Accessories and Storage
The backsplash area is in the range of easiest access for most people, right in front of us as we work at a counter. So, it makes sense to use it for storage, not just for pretty. There are many systems of rails which you can attach to the wall, then hang accessories from (hooks for utemsils, shelves, baskets, paper towel roll hoders, etc) but you can also install shallow shelves, hooks, and racks for specific items. In the prep area, for example, hanging your knives on a magnetic rack and your cutting boards right next to them is very convenient.
Door-Mounted Shelves and Racks
The inside of cabinet doors is another prime, but often ignored, storage location. While you need to be careful about adding too much weight (depending on how strong your doors and hinges are), there are many light items that can be stored on shallow shelves or racks inside a door, such as spices, wraps and bags. A cookbook holder is another possibility, assuming you don’t mind leaving the door open while you use the cookbook, while information sheets like first aid reminders, lists of what’s in the freezer, or weight and volume measure conversions for recipes are all very convenient but normally out of sight when posted inside a door.
Spice and Herb Storage
Spices are awkward to store because they come in small containers, you want them easily accessible, you often need to use them in more than one location, and the mixture of containers can look quite messy if it’s out in the open. Consider a drawer next to the range or baking center (you can buy inserts so the spice jars can lie sloping on their backs and the labels are easy to see), a narrow pull out in the base or wall cabs, a separate spice rack on the wall or backsplash, or a rack inside a cabinet door. And don’t forget that if you use your spices in more than one place, you can split the collection and have your baking spices where you bake, and your cooking spices by the cooktop. If you buy herbs or spices in bulk, you probably only want small quantities out for daily use, so a spot in the pantry for storing backup supplies may be needed too.
Toekick Storage
There’s wasted space in most kitchens behind the toekick at the bottom of the base cabinets. If it’s done right, toekick storage can be great for keeping large flat items out of the way – anything from big platters to paper for kids crafts to a small stepladder. With a new kitchen you can make sure that the area under the cabs is clean and sanitary and will stay that way, but retrofitting to an old kitchen may be a bit more difficult.
Under-Cabinet Accessories
The underside of your wall cabinets is another potential place for storage accessories, from shallow drawers to drop-down knife racks and cookbook holders. The main thing to watch is that if you have undercabinet lighting, your accessories don’t cover it up or come too close to hot halogen bulbs for safety.
Custom Built-Ins
If you’re getting a custom kitchen, then you can have your cabinetmaker build exactly what you need to make best use oif all the odd corners, nooks and crannies. Don’t give up if you have to use stock cabinets, though: it’s often possible to use accessories, storage items from other sources, or pieces you build yourself to get the best use of your space.
