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designing a pots/pans drawer

16 years ago

I hope this isn't a stupid question. Perhaps this is "common knowledge" to seasoned kitchen obsessed people...

How many inches does one have to work with when they are deciding on drawer depths? I am finalizing my cabinet needs for our cabinet maker and want to make sure I get it right. I am planning a 30" wide, 24" deep pots and pans drawer. I am planning for pots on the bottom deepest drawer, pans in the middle medium sized drawer and lids in the top shallow drawer. I pulled out all my "stuff" and measured, and it looks like I need 13" for the depth of the bottom, 9" for the middle drawer and 8" for the top lid drawer. How do I translate this so I can tell the cabinet maker what size to make the drawers?

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Comments (7)

lightlystarched
16 years ago
Do you have other banks of drawers, or cabinets with a top drawer? You will probably want to make the pots & pans drawers to the same dimensions, so it looks right. I think it would be strange to have one top drawer 7" deep and another one 6" deep, jmho.
gardenwebber
Original Author
16 years ago
lightly - do you mean that whatever dimensions I use for my pots and pans drawer, that I should use the same for any drawer banks that are next to it? I might have another 30" wide bank right next to this pot/pan drawer I am talking about. I haven't decided if I want it or a pantry cabinet, so its a possibility.
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I have a Rev A Shelf double tier heavy duty chrome pullout (they have two lines of chrome pullouts) in a cabinet for my pots and pans. In my dream kitchen they are staying. 1. Pots and pans that are heavily used eventually get "stuff" on them. I don't like putting things with "stuff"in wooden drawers. I don't like having to empty drawers for cleaning all the time. That's also why I would never have built in wooden dividers. I want to be able to lift out and wash silverware and utensil trays periodically. Lucky people who have never had a house mouse to deal with. LOL All these pretty kitchen displays don't account for real life. Mice enter, kids spill juice, pots and pans don't stay pristine, crumbs magically appear. I'm a realist. I don't have a maid and my time is better spent out having fun than cleaning my cabinetry and polishing my pots and appliances. For others it may be different. I am not suzy homemaker although I love to cook and bake. 2. The wire allows air to circulate. A pan that has a little moisture left behind after drying is no problem. 3. They are adjustable. If my cookware or storage needs change, so can they. Just last week, we put a second smaller 18" unit in another of my current elderly kitchen cabs for the dog's food. The bottom holds two giant Tupperware canisters for the kibble and the top holds a flat of canned food, a scoop and an extra bowl with room to spare on both layers. The glides used are for 100 pounds. The baskets are heavy duty but probably weigh less than a wood drawer.
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My 10 inch drawers are just right for a big stockpot, le creuset Dutch oven, frying pans stacked (with protectors between them), as well as the assorted other saucepans and lids. There’s room for two of those drawers, and a shallower drawer on top for utensils and the like.
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I agree with homechef59 that those small top drawers can be valuable real estate. A deep drawer full of tin foil and melon ballers can quickly become a jumbled mess unless everyone who accesses the drawer is disciplined. Fundamentally, it comes down to what you want to store and where you like to find it. If you already have all the short drawers you could possibly need for holding boxes of ziploc baggies and garlic presses, then the big drawers might be useful. If you have lots of big pots and yogurt makers to store, then those big drawers could be the answer. For instance, beyond the essential shorts drawers, I like a drawer for knives (I like knife blocks, but I don't like them on my counter), one for spices (my new favourite thing) and one for junk (either I have a junk drawer or it ends up on the counter - I admit defeat). So, I need lots of short drawers. My friend loves having the right appliance for the right job, so she needs lots of deep drawers. Mentally unpack in your new kitchen and see what kind of space you need and want. If you are on the fence about what you need - you can add things to deep drawers to provide short drawer functionality (e.g. stores things in tupperware in the deep drawer or add some fancy drawer hardware), but you can't make a drawer deeper. I vote for three drawer stack, though.
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Just make sure you get heavy duty fully extending drawer hardware. Sometime you also get a choice of the thickness of the drawer base, which is worth upgrading for larger drawers. In my previous house, before I remodeled, I had a 48" 3-stack of drawers. Kept all my pots/pans in the 2 lower drawers. The cabinet and hardware quality was barely average and the drawers did fine holding the weight.
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c9pilot
16 years ago
I don't think this is going to fit at standard counter height if you go with traditional drawers. My counters are 36" high with 3.5" toekick and tile/schluter counters.
I just measured some of my drawers in a triple stack.
The face of the top drawer measures 7" but there is only 5" height inside the drawer; the middle drawer measures 11" on the outside and 9.5" usable inside; the bottom drawer measures 12" on the door and 10" usable depth inside.
All the drawers have blumotion slides that fit under the drawer, so you might get more depth with side-slides.

If you go with double cabinet doors and put slide-out trays inside, you'll get a little more room. Under my top drawers (same as above), I have double-doors and two adjustable slide-out trays that are set (right now) to give me 7" height and 13" height.

Or, you might consider getting 30" deep cabinets, as I have. That's about 25% more storage space. But that's another thread...
annzgw
16 years ago
Here's my setup. I really like having the slide out shelves vs full drawers. My large skillets are kept in a large, deep drawer that is under my warming drawer and I find it not as easy to use.
The lower drawer hold a total of 4 large pots.
{{gwi:1580699}}

The interior width of the cabinet is 25 1/2" and the depth is 22 3/4".
The height from the bottom of lower drawer to the bottom of the second drawer is 10 1/4". The front of each drawer is 3 1/4" deep.

The top drawer, where I keep all my lids, is 7 3/4" from the bottom of the drawer to the frame of the cabinet
annzgw
16 years ago
Forgot to add......having a deeper center drawer allow me to stack 2-3 pots.
c9pilot
16 years ago
annz,
That is really nice. Our cabinet company calls those "slide-out trays" rather than shelves, because there are sides to them.
So this looks pretty close to what I have, except I have only two trays inside and with 30" wide I had to go with double doors, and of course, 25.75" inside tray depth (some pots hang over the sides of the tray though).
coleen3201118
16 years ago
I have 2 36" wide drawers (one on top of the other). They are terrific - they hold all my pots and pans as well as stockpots. I was thinking the other day that this might be my favorite organizational feature of my kitchen.

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