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How much 'lip' for the counter top?

11 years ago

Hello. I'm new here and planning a kitchen remodel. I have a question about the countertop for my island.

The top will be a John Boos butcher block. The cabinets are 60" long and a standard 24" deep. The countertop will be 72" long so there's a one-seat overhang at the end.

My question is the width (depth?) of the counter. It can come 25" or 27" by 72". So my choices are a 0.5" "lip" around the island. Or a 1.5" lip. My existing counter are 1" bigger than the cabinets. That's fine and I can't decide if .5" would be too small or 1.5" would be too big.

Thought? Thanks.

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Comments (7)

ginny20
11 years ago
1.5 is not too big. Will there be knobs or pulls on doors/ drawers on the island? You want the overhang to clear the knobs so you don't end up leaning into them. I would think that drips would be less likely to go down the front of the island, too. Go for the 27".
clarygrace
11 years ago
1.5" is pretty much standard overhang. Anything less can be a problem with spills that hit your cabinetry.
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suzanne_sl
11 years ago
Someone on here recently said he/she specifically wanted a 3/4" overhang. I think it was the recent thread on what to expect when the fabricator came to template the countertops. It was definitely a special request as that's not the usual thing. If a 3/4" overhang is considered small, think how much smaller an extra 1/4" would be.
meganmca
11 years ago
What kind of cabinet/drawer doors? Non-inset ones will make your cabinets bigger than 24", just want to be sure you've considered that.
nap101
11 years ago
I've been wondering about this as well.

I have two parts to this post. An experiment and a question.

Pardon my ignorance, but I'm still learning a lot of this stuff. Nothing in my current kitchen is even close to what I'm slowly learning is considered standard.

Experiment:
I've owned and lived with my current kitchen for 20 years. Reading the above post and considering my renovation, I had to go and check my current kitchen and test the things stated above. I have 22 inch countertop depth (yes, that is correct). The tile border extends 1/2 inch beyond the base cabinets, and the drawers are 1/2 inch as well so they are flush give or take a 1/32. The pulls on the drawers stick out 1 1/4 inch. I have had issues with spills that drip into the lip of the drawer and occasionally I have to wipe the sides down, but nothing that is hard to cleanup, and they are white painted drawers.

After reading this post I leaned into my countertop/cabinet to test out the theory that you will feel the pulls if you lean into it. If I purposely lean into the cabinet, I do feel the pulls on my legs. But I have to make a real effort to do that and in 20 years this has never ever even occurred to me as an issue. Maybe I'm just not the type that hugs up close to my countertop. So I doubt this will be an issue I obsess about. There are too many others...

I found this a fascinating experiment.

My question:
So what is considered a standard countertop depth? It seems like the 24 inch cabinets are the base cabinets. A 3/4 in door makes the total cabinet depth without the handle 24 3/4.

So what is considered standard? 26? 27?
gregincal
11 years ago
A standard countertop depth is 25.5". The 24" cabinet plus a 1 1/2" overhang. That's the size that prefabricated granite countertops generally are.
peridot44
Original Author
11 years ago
Thank you all for your replies. I'll go with the 27".

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