Your picture has gone away.

Hmm, it was there. Trying again.

A deep drawer with dividers for storing skillets vertically, like a file cabinet, might be nice. I wish I'd done that! If you stick them in with handles pointing up, no bending.

Warmfridge, From the way you describe, I gather that you are not in a wheelchair but limited in your motion and weight limits for lifting from below waist? Your kitchen is almost identical to mine -- or the one I will have when I am finished -- except stove and sink are reversed, but I have not had the same considerations in my planning.

Pots and pans confounded me more than almost anything else. I found the divided drawers and the drawer-front pull-out shelves, which were way better than the fixed bottom shelf of the base we have them in now. But you know when you just have a feeling that there is something different that would be better for you personally? I had that feeling, until I finally found the pullout base with the pegboards on which you place hooks for the pots and pans to hang on. Rev-a-shelf makes them, not sure who else. They may have even been posted here recently. My all-time favorite, which I am disappointed not to be able to use, is akin to a pot rack which hangs from the ceiling, but this is mounted inside a tall pantry pullout as the top tier of storage. That was what I had been looking for.

I'm also picturing, if you can do any tall pullouts, being able to put the kinds of things you are describing on those shelves in a 15-18" wide cabinet.

If that's out of the question, Starcraft has an article about using deeper cabinets. They recommend 16" up top, but on the bottom you'd need 30" deep, and the uppers would be closer to the counters. See the link below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Starcraft article

Jsweenc,

You described my situation well. I don't think I can do deeper base cabs. If I do that on either the short or long arm of the L, I will lose any reasonable access to the lower corner cab as each side of the hinged door there is only 10'' wide. It would be a tradeoff, gaining potentially more convenient storage but losing the large amount of corner storage and making the corner awkward. Deeper base cabinets on the island would mean either eliminating the counter overhang which is used for seating or making that an awkward and crowded area.

I'm wondering about making the upper cabs 2'' deeper on the short arm of the L, and the countertops 1'' deeper. That might work.

I guess I need to find a Rev-a-shelf catalog. Their website isn't very user-friendly. Will pursue that next.

Thanks for the suggestions...you've given me more to think about.

forgot to ask - what's that?

steph, did you mean me? What is that? That is what I had just described, a pot rack inside a tall pantry pullout.

I figured out where I saw the picture. (Funny how everything starts running together after a while.) DH brought home a Diamond cabinets book from Lowes just for ideas and it was in the book.Turns out it wasn't a tall pantry pullout but a fixed cabinet with a pots and pans rack that pulls out. I can't find a picture of this on the Diamond website, but I'll try to scan it after a while and send it.

Sorry if that's not what you meant!

Here is a link that might be useful: Diamond website

There aren't any Lowes around here, but the Diamond website is giving me more ideas. Something like the pullout below could be really helpful. Need to see if someone makes something to facilitate Fori's skillet storage idea.

Steph meant "What is a pet center?" Answer: area occupied by pets and their stuff and not usable for kitchen storage.

Here is a link that might be useful: Diamond pullout

Oh yes, I have those rollout shelves now and have appreciated them for 15 years. I would never go back to fixed lower cabinet shelves unless there was no other option (better than nothing). Since that was the extent of the options we had at the time, I am so glad we did it that way. I know now that it wasn't the only option; we could have gone all drawers, and I think I would have liked that even better. The problem with the rollout shelves behind doors is that you have to open both doors before you can roll out the shelf. Once you do, accessibility is great. But our doors are gouged from being impatient. Which is fine with me, but I'd still prefer the single motion of a drawer to the 2 motions of the cabinet. To avoid lifting over the sides of drawers, you could have the same kind of rollout with a drawer front attached.

I agree about the Rev-a-shelf site. I guess they do enough business that user-friendly is not high priority. Look at the link below. You will see both the pegboard that I described earlier and the drawer front shelf with the cereal on the bottom tier. For pots and pans I'm not picturing one that goes floor to counter like that, but I can't find the link to the picture I have in my files.

I am sorry to be obtuse, but I feel like I missed something! How did you know steph was referring to your pet zone? I didn't see any picture or diagram or reference in her post.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rev-a-Shelf pullout storage