I guess the question you need to ask is whether there is some reason those small appliances can't be kept in drawers? For instance, the mixer may need a special height clearance, and adjustable roll-outs (or fixed roll-outs installed with your mixer in mind) could provide that where drawers couldn't. If that's the case, then a roll-out makes sense. Otherwise, go for drawers.

As I'm sure you've already read here, the advantages of drawers over roll-outs are many. There's the added motions of opening and closing and having to be careful to open the cabinets just so to avoid banging the roll-out on the door. There's also the issue of things falling off the sides and back of the roll-out. Finally, there's the fact that drawers are much more versatile in terms of what you can keep in them, because you can arrange things much more easily when you don't have to worry about things falling out.

Other than for a specific use that can't be addressed by drawers, I think that roll-outs are pretty much never the better choice. Even if you do need to keep one roll-out for your mixer, don't get so caught up in symmetry that you think you need to get two. Symmetry is really overrated and only really seems to matter in drawings of kitchens, not in real-life kitchens. Believe me, you'll notice the difference in function WAY more than you'll notice the difference in those two cabinet fronts.

I like to keep my KA stand mixer out and not lift it up and down, but my blender, food processor, hand mixer, waffle iron, panini grill, etc., etc. are in drawers. I have hated my experience with pullouts and don't have any in my kitchen. I do have a few of cabinets with adjustable shelves, most of which I wish were drawers instead.

Besides the list of negatives Holligator already provided, Staceyneil, in another current thread, pointed out that the rollout has to be narrower than a drawer, because of the clearance needed to pass the door.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread with Stacey's comments on her rollouts vs drawers

I am really trying to find a good enough reason to keep the 18" rollouts with doors. For the life of me, I can't - but there must be a reason out there that I haven't thought of yet. I see drawers at a distinct advantage over doors/rollouts. My husband on the other hand thinks that drawers waste more space. He thinks you lose space with the cabinet framing between the drawers. Then again, he's old school and thinks that we should keep those cabinets as empty boxes...no drawers, no roll outs, nothing. That I won't have! If I convert these cabinets, that will mean all my cabinets will be drawers, no doors at all besides the sink base. Is that too extreme?

We kept one small area of the kitchen as rollouts---a 48" cabinet that looks like 2 24"'s. The reason was pure aesthetics. I have a few areas where drawers were not practical (a 14" deep area for fine china/glassware eg.) and in order to create some visual balance the doors with rollouts just looked better in that one area. I do have a lot of drawers and prefer those for functionality, but there are times when the doors might create that visual balance you need.

One other area to look at is where you have large cabinets with drawers (i.e. oven cabinet, rangetop cabinet). If your cabinets are stock or semi-custom, sometimes the drawer heights in those cabinets are not the same as standard 3 drawer stacks. If you like all your drawers to line up, make sure your drawings reflect that. I ended up with one area in my kitchen where they don't line up---at first if bothered me, but I've gotten over it.

My new kitchen is all drawers except for the two sink bases and the trash can pull-out. I do not regret doing this for one second!! The storage space is just amazing, and I can get to everything so easily. But since you do have that heavy mixer that will not fit in a drawer, I would be tempted to keep one cabinet with a roll out for the mixer. My mixer lives in my pantry.

I have one cabinet with rollouts and I use the bottom one as my liquor cabinet. It's very convenient to roll it out to get at the bottles at the back. I suppose also that having doors on it rather than drawers makes the overall look of the cabinets a little more interesting.

Is that too extreme? No. That's stylish.

Losing space? Does he mean height? That might be a point. I have a couple of extra deep drawers going in for large "small" appliances, which have shallow pullouts inside, for that reason.

There are two main reasons to like pullouts:
1) Adjustable height pullouts give you flexibility, so if you aren't sure what your needs are going to be, or if they're for small appliances that might change over time as some leave you and new ones arrive, they're a good choice.

2) You want to see whatever it is from the side, or remove it from the side, rather than from the top.

With drawers you don't have the door in your way.

I like having some rollouts for the reasons mentioned by plllog. I have them on each side of the cooktop (18" wide cabinets) for pots, pans, and baking dishes. I also have drawers for shorter items that I don't want to stack, and a deep wide drawer under the cooktop (under the warming drawer) for large pans. I also have a 27" butt door cabinet next to the microwave with rollouts for DH's snacks.

In the lower level kitchen where the kitchen is smaller, I have 27" wide butt door cabinets with rollouts on each side of the range, since it lets my daughter put more things in them than drawers would. However, there are also 2 banks of drawers on the sink side.

In my former kitchen remodel, I did all rollouts since it was a smaller kitchen. One was 27" with butt doors and 4 rollouts (in addition to the drawer on top) to store boxed and canned goods on their sides. Another was 24" for small appliance storage. And I had a 21" with rollouts on each side of the range for pots, pans, and baking dishes.

Anne

2) You want to see whatever it is from the side, or remove it from the side, rather than from the top.

You can also get that from drawers by having a drawer box that is much shorter than the drawer opening.

On our cabinet with oils, vinegars and other bottled goods, we tend to keep the most used items at the front of the pullout so we can take them out by just opening the door. To get the stuff behind them we pull out the pull out.

With the way they do drawers in all the commercial framed cabinets, the OP's husband is right. You lose perhaps an inch of height between each pair of drawers. That is somewhat counterbalanced by the loss of width due to the door. On unframed cabinets, you only lose a small fraction of an inch - the amount that the drawer front hangs down below the glides - about 1/2 inch.

We did use pullouts in a couple of cabinets where we thought we might want to adjust the heights over time.

Where we gained on room by doing that was the cabinet that holds baking sheets and wire racks. Since they use the depth of the cabinet lying on their long sides, we didn't put in the pullout on the bottom.

If you are ever going to need to baby proof, there is one additional advantage to the door, pull-out over drawers - you only need to put one baby latch for the whole door. On drawers you need one per a drawer that you need to protect and we found it very difficult to find and install ones that work well on drawers of frameless cabinets. Because of the danger of breaking glass bottles, we did put a latch on the door of the cabinet with pullouts for our bottled goods.

My new kitchen has 3 cabinets with roll outs and I did this intentionally after reading the strong negative opinions expressed here. Two of the cabinets are 30" wide and they flank a center cabinet with 3 drawers. The left hand side roll outs are what I call my cooking pantry. Although I have a large walk in pantry I prefer to have the things I use constantly within a few steps when I'm cooking. So my cooking pantry has things like rice, pasta, dried beans, canned diced tomatoes and other basic canned goods in addition to my sugars and flours. If these items were in drawers I felt I would be not able to see what I wanted as easily as with the roll out with low sides. Also, for me, it's easier to swing a big container of flour, etc. out and up without lifting it over the side of a drawer. The 30" cabinet on the right hand side has all of my baking pans which are stacked together and again it's easier for me to see exactly what I want and get it out with the roll outs. Although I'm a very big function person, it also like the way this whole wall of cabinets looks with the doors flanking the drawers in the middle.

My third roll out cabinet is in a different area of the kitchen and has all of my active baking stuff---mixing bowls, measuring cups, colanders, strainers, juicers, etc.---and again, the same easier to see, choose and access logic applies for me. The visual appeal of the doors on this run of cabinets isn't as great as it is for me on the other run but with the doors this area also has a certain rhythm of doors and drawers that I find appealing.

This really is a very individual preference feature. My dear MIL had a custom kitchen with roll outs and I loved working in her kitchen so I developed a real fondness for them. My old kitchen had none but did have a fair number of drawers that I always found too deep. I was always losing something underneath the bottom of a stack of something and forgetting it was there. HTH.

What about having a drawer with a very short box? In other words, where the drawer sides are very low to allow handles to perhaps extend over the sides a bit and to allow easier reach in to lift out heavier small appliances?

Not height-adjustable like pullouts, but single-motion like drawers.

Yeah, I meant what Cloud Swift said about looking from the sides. I should have said front. :-)

If you like the symmetry of the doors with roll out, then go for it. Especially, if it's going to nag at you everytime you look at your kitchen.

I worked in the Kitchen and Bath Design field some years ago. Our design school instructed us to use base cabinets with drawers rather than regular base cabinets with roll-out shelves for practical reasons as well as economic - the drawers are considerably cheaper. When I was finally able to redesign my own kitchen, I followed my advice and have been very happy with the choice. I realized that I had tall items to store as well as shorter ones, so I selected a cabinet line that offered either 3- or 4- drawer base cabinets. The drawers in the 4-drawer cabinets are shallow - great for skillets, baking pans, towels, etc. The deeper drawers hold all the mixing bowls, pots and pans and some small appliances. I did reserve one 15" cabinet next to the stove for vertical storage of large baking sheets, broiler pans, etc. I built my own slide-out with vertical partitions mounted on a drawer slide purchased in the hardware store. Works great!

- the drawers are considerably cheaper.

i don't know about that. i looked at three different lines of cabinetry and finally selected custom. in all instances, drawers are more expensive than roll outs. it was a couple years ago, but i remember wellborn being one of the manufacturers along with a canadian company. all the custom shops i looked at charged more for drawers as well.
personally i think roll outs have their place and i'm using a few in my base cabs ...i think there are two and then a couple more in the island. there will be things you accumulate along the way that will not fit the drawers (height). i love the idea of the drawers (my kitchen is being built with the rest of the house so not using them yet) but to say they are the only way to go is a bit short sighted. like anything else it's personal preference. i know i would never feel comfortable going with all drawers. my cabinet maker has been waiting several weeks for me to determine how deep each drawer should be. it's a commitment, whereas roll outs give you more options. good luck!

I put in a cabinet with roll outs because I plan on putting tall bottles in it that would just simply not fit in a drawer. Totally depends on what you're planning to store in it.

My post doesn't necessarily address the OP's specific concern, but that has been well addressed above.

I thought I'd post a reply to the thread title's question in case future kitchen planners are curious what the answer is.

In my opinion, the answer is, almost always, but there are always exceptions! For example, in my kitchen I have all drawers except as seen in the pictures below. My cool short pullouts for placemats and cloth napkins are only 3" high and I think they would have looked too fussy as drawers. Also, the other side couldn't have matched since there are only two very deep dish drawers behind those doors. I think in this case it looks nicer with both sides having the same doors even though what is going on behind them is quite different.

Also, the taller stack to the right of the side with the dish drawers has pullouts that would not have worked with drawers bc it is simply easier to take things in and out without the high sides that drawers would require to keep them hidden.

Left side with doors closed -

Left side with doors open -

Right side with doors closed (matching left side) -

Right side with doors open -

I would never say that drawers were the better option. I think it depends on how your kitchen functions. Personally I have a combo of both. I have two 36" base cabs with roll outs, one has an option of four rollers in it and the other has one and two drawers above the doors. I use this for my kitchen aid, toaster, etc and the other side is used for linens, trays, tupperware, etc. Having the ability to adjust the height as I wish makes it so much easier to really use the space as I'd like. Fixed drawers don't offer that option.

I did use every inch of space I could, including having toe kick drawers under every cabinet. I need different functions for different cabs, and would NEVER go to all drawers.

I have a busy life but I haven't had to really adjust it much to fit in the time to both open a door and pull out a slider...perhaps some day that few seconds will matter...gad I hope not :oP To me function is way more important than a couple of seconds :)

"use base cabinets with drawers rather than regular base cabinets with roll-out shelves for practical reasons as well as economic - the drawers are considerably cheaper"

yikes - I read drawers were more expensive and thought -'oh no!' then read they were cheaper (above) and thought 'yeah'... now they're more expensive again...'boo!' lol!

"I did use every inch of space I could, including having toe kick drawers under every cabinet"

what all do you use those for? aren't they mouse houses?

"I have a busy life but I haven't had to really adjust it much to fit in the time to both open a door and pull out a slider...perhaps some day that few seconds will matter...gad I hope not"

I hope it doesn't come for you - might mean you have physical limitations such as I do. not fun at all. less hand use is better for me. less motion is better.

I hope it doesn't cost a whole lot more for drawers...

We are just about done with our complete kitchen renovation and I now have 17 drawers. Which is 5 units with 3 drawers each and one large microwave cabinet that sits on the counter with two wide drawers under the microwave and a large cabinet over it. I LOVE having all drawers. I didn't want to have to open a door or set of doors then have to pull out the drawer. It is working for me and glad I did it.