My tray storage is above my ovens and there is a shelf above the vertical dividers. Not easy to get to but just fine for infrequently used items. I don't know off the top of my head what the dimensions of mine are. I have a tray cabinet in a lower at my lake cabin. It has a shallow drawer above it and I don't notice that I have any excess space in the height of the tray sections. Are you having a drawer above yours?

I have a drawer above my tray storage cabinet - but I have custom cabinets so I don't know if this configuration is generally available.

I'd get a drawer, but at least get a shelf! Actually, a shelf might come in handy for weird items like barbecue tools.

OMG, fori, you just gave me a great idea!

ooo what what what?

And why don't any great ideas have applications in MY kitchen?

Yes! I just checked and my tray cabinet has holes punched for shelves. And I have some extra shelves. And shelf clips. Enter shelf for storing long barbecue tools that don't fit anywhere else. Yippee!

dmlove, what height are the holes for the shelf from the base? can you show pictures? Thanks

In the finished kitchens blog someone has a tray cabinet with shelf above it. I thought I had saved a pic of it, but I guess not. Hmmm...love the idea about bbq utensils...know if I can convince DH to drill some holes for the shelf.

Barbecue tools? That's it? That's not very interesting. But at least we all agree that SOMEthing needs to go there!

Here is mine. I have only one tray divider on the right in this cabinet, for cutting boards. On the left, I keep the wok and baskets. The shelf above is great! I keep large serving trays, the pizza stone, and the griddle there. Those items could also go vertically in another tray divider, but this is how it ended up working for me. Great use of space, IMO. Works best for items that I don't access every day. They are tucked up and out of the way.

I'll have a 12" wide lower cab for trays, and planned one shelf, placed as you said, about 16" from the bottom. I seem to have lots of oddly shaped vessels- 8x8 pans, aluminum pie pans from potlucks, etc. I have not done any of this yet, but I think that your idea is sound.

I have a really small kitchen and needed to maximize drawer space where I could, so I ended up with a cabinet with two drawers on top and the tray cabinet section on the bottom. This setup has worked really well for me....
{{!gwi}}

Here's another view...
{{!gwi}}

thinktoomuch, I wish I could but I'm away on vacation. Won't be home until the 7th of August. If you're still looking then....

KLB, that's just so cute. We need more odd-sized cabinets in the world. It adds so much personality. Love it.

O, yeah, functional too, and stuff. Can't believe you all have me considering a tray cabinet. I have no problems whatsoever keeping my tray type things in a drawer under the oven! Shame on you!

klb 2000, what is the interior width of your baking pans/muffin pans cabinet? Your solution looks perfect for my island (baking center) but I only have about 9-11 inches (exterior width) to work with.

KLB, what a simple but clever solution. I never realized that you could actually do something like that. Are your cabs custom?

And, I agree with fori, the cabinet is cute! I guess it's the 'mini door' :)

9" inside is a really useful size. My vote: put a single tray divider in there, so stuff doesn't have to lean too much.

Also, the more up-and-down you have, the easier it is to get stuff out. So, in a way, more stuff is easier to store than less stuff, oddly enough.

My cabinets are modular and I have a drawer on top. It stores everything I need. Mine is 12" wide with 2 dividers. Don't think I'd want it narrower than that--unless you have frameless cabinets and then I'd probably only do 1 divider.

Aw, thanks for the compliments on my little tray cupboard! Weed30--yep, I do have custom cabinets.

amberley, the door on my little tray storage cabinet is 15" high by 10" wide, but the interior of the cabinet is a bit wider--more like a tad over 11". Since the cabinet is already pretty narrow, I opted to skip any kind of vertical divider, but like Talley sue pointed out--as long as you have quite a bit of stuff in there, it all sort of 'supports' itself.

Here's mine above the fridge with an 8' ceiling. I can reach the lower edges of the trays to get them out, but I need a step stool to get to the upper shelves.

{{!gwi}}

I like your cabinet, babka--in mine, I have spaced the dividers MUCH more closely, and so things don't lean on one another. They pull out very smoothly.

That's a good use of the space over the fridge, Babka. Even *I* could reach the bottoms of those!

I have one in the current house that's actually a wooden "box" insert DH made for me, with dividers and a shelf. It fits in a base cabinet. There's a shelf above the trays (put it at the height you want for your highest tray opening needed). Then, because it's a complete box (with top and bottom), there's a top also. So it's like having 2 shelves above the trays.

On the enclosed shelf I have rolling pins, rolls of parchment paper and other baking supplies. On the top "shelf" there's not much headroom; I keep a big collapsible stainless dish drainer there.

The insert is going with us to the new house, but I'm going to flip it upside down! That way, the trays--mostly baking sheets and baking pans in our case--will be on top. I use them daily and won't have to bend as far to reach them. Rolling pin, etc, is not so often used.

We have pull out shelves above the tray area. That way the height can be adjusted if we get something that needs more height later.

in our last kitchen I had DH put a pullout towel rack in the tray cabinet, and used it for potholders, as it was next to the oven.

Bump...useful info

bump

I don't have the tray cabinet/dividers, but I couldn't help wondering why the extra shelf wouldn't be at the bottom rather than the top? In other words, you'd have a short area at the bottom of the cabinet and then a taller divided area on top for the trays, platters, etc. That way wouldn't everything be easier to reach? Or maybe I just thought of this because I'm short.

If your tray cabinet is a BASE cabinet, you'd want the smaller shelf on the top.

If your tray cabinet is above the fridge or oven, you might still want the shelf on the top, bcs if you put the shelf low, you might end up w/ the trays/cookie sheets so high up that you can't reach them without a stepstool.

I have stuff on that top shelf that is very seldom used. When I want it, I'll get the step stool out. But I would have to hate to get a stepstool every single time I baked cookies or needed a different cutting board.

I'm short, so I positioned a shelf at the bottom of the cabinets above our Advantium, and put vertical dividers on that shelf for sheet pans & trays. I can put heavy platters & roasting type dishes in the bottom section & still reach the vertical sheet pans to pull them out. I did the same thing above our fridge; I'd have to use a stepstool to reach just about anything there, but I can just reach platters on the bottom & use the stool for what's above.

I have a divider cabinet above my ovens with dividers that go all the way to the top. I filled it up and then discovered more bakeware! I haven't done it yet (just got the idea yesterday), but I want to install strips to act as shelf supports on each side of the existing dividers and sides of the cabinets and then have narrow shelves out in on each section -- creating double decker tray slots over my ovens. I can just reach where the top shelf would be, but I would use those for seasonal and specialty pans and items so that it wouldn't be that big a deal to get out the step stool -- which is just a few feet away. I'm so excited about the prospect!

Bumping ...

This is a great thread.
Thank you, Buehl, for linking it to one of your recent posts - wouldn't have known about it otherwise!

With 56 posts already, it will be awhile before it reaches 150 posts and drops off automatically - lost forever.
Wish more people knew about that rule, so we could stop posting info after 120 posts or so, and use the rest for bumping every 6-7 weeks (it takes about 2 months for them to drop off).

BTW, is there any way to clip an entire thread, not just a single post (other than "cut & paste" to a Word document)?

Oops, this thread only has 32 followups.
I realize now the 56 number was the number of threads I got when I searched for "tray cabinet"

bump

No, my tray cabinet isn't a base cabinet, but the subject still applies. My trays are stored in the cabinet above my ovens.

To pull a tray out, you only need to reach the bottom corner; you don't need to reach the top. So, I opted to put the shelf only a few inches above the floor of the cabinet and then put my tray dividers on the shelf. This allowed me to use the bottom section for platters & griddle. The trays are still accessible and I don't have any wasted space on top.

Also, I've linked a thread from 2009 discussing almost the exact same question.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: Do you like your tray storage? Can you share the details please?