Storage Mistakes That Make a Kitchen Harder to Use

Your kitchen can have plenty of storage space, but still be unusable and lack functionality. It’s not always a case of having the storage in place but how it’s configured, what it’s designed for, and even where it is.

If you’re in the throes of designing a new kitchen or you simply need to reconfigure your kitchen storage, this post is going to look at some mistakes that you need to change, or that will make life worse.

Putting Deep Fixed Shelves Behind Cabinet Doors

Having a base cabinet with fixed shelving seems reasonable, right? It isn’t until you’re down on your hands and knees, scrambling in the back of a deep cupboard you can barely reach into, looking for that thing you need. It’s essentially dead and wasted space, and it’s where food or dish ware goes to die.

The fix here is to replace fixed shelving in a deep cabinet with full-extension drawers or pull-out shelving. By adding these, you utilize the entire depth of the cabinet, and nothing ends up in a no man’s land at the back. You have access to the entire cabinet.

Running Wall Cabinets That Stop Short of the Ceiling

That gap between the top of your cabinets and the ceiling can be the same as the depth of a deep floor cabinet. Messy, lawless, and probably grimy too. This area is one of the most consistently wasted spaces in any kitchen.

The remedy is to run your kitchen cabinetry to the ceiling to eliminate the gap entirely. This way, you don’t lose storage space; you’re just incorporating it into the cabinetry itself. And you can then use it for things that don’t need daily access, much like you’re probably doing already.

Installing All Drawers The Same Depth

Installing a bank of drawers that are all the same depth means you’ll either have drawers that have wasted space or items that don’t fit in them at all. Drawer depth should be matched to what is going on in them.

A shallow top drawer is ideal for cutlery and utensils, while a medium drawer can handle things like kitchen towels, food storage tubs, lids, etc., and a deeper one can handle pots and pans and be significantly more stable than sticking them in a cabinet, which also wastes space.

So when you’re thinking about drawers for your kitchen, ensure they don’t all have the same depth; this is a waste of time and money.

Choosing Cabinetry with No Thought for How Appliance Doors Open

Seems basic, right? The thing is, it’s really easy to overlook this, and it can make it difficult each and every day. A cabinet door that swings into the path of a fully open oven means you’re pulling trays out at an angle every time you cook. Fridge doors that open into a run of base cabinets create the same issue, too.

During the layout phase, you need to make door swing clearance adjustments for every appliance against the cabinetry positions next to it. Adjusting the plan on paper takes minutes; adjusting it once it’s completed is not so easy.

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