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Microwave mystery location

13 years ago

I was thinking of having some open shelving as a go between the kitchen and the dining room ( on the wall). I'd put coffee mugs, plates, or things that we would use all the time. It will also be our coffee area. My question: how would it look to place a microwave underneath the shelving? My concern is that might make the shelves a little high, although my husband and I are tall. There will be no sitting at the peninsula as my DR is too small. Any opinions out there. I have moved this microwave all over my kitchen and honestly don't know where it's going to land.

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Comments (6)

fun2cook
13 years ago
I've gone thru hell trying to figure out where to put my MW too. I was going to put it in a cabinet over the counter also, but decided against it. We have kids who use the MW and it would be too high for them. Also just personally didn't like the way it looked. Also w/ over counter installation depth is an issue. Most upper cabinets are about 12" deep, but you need at least 16" for a mid-size MW. I didn't want my upper cabinets extending that far out over the cabinet. Finally we resized our bar area, which is 42" high, and put it under the counter there. It's a little lower than it was sitting on the counter, more like sitting it on a standard table.
There are always compromises to make. My friend redid her kitchen, she went for just 1 oven, and built in the MW over that, with a pull-out board between them. This works great for her family, but I really wanted 2 ovens.
paulabrady
Original Author
13 years ago
It is a problem esp since we don't use it a lot. Also thinking I could put a drawer one in. Micronwave issue has been haunting me for months. Thank you for feedback
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Ours is between the fridge and range, near our plates and bowls which makes plating items either before or after mwing easier. It's also very handy during cooking for defrosting or melting butter. We put our mw on the bottom shelf of an upper cabinet, similar to what you show. Instead of putting doors above the mw, we put in open adjustable shelves so that we can change the height of the space, if necessary, in the future. When planning the depth of your shelf, make sure you account for the plug behind the mw. Our mw plug stuck out so much, it made the mw sit too far forward on the shelf. Dh had to buy a flatter plug at the electrical supply place and change it out for the one that came with the mw. If I had it to do over again, I would have placed the outlet so that it wasn't directly behind the mw. As far as prepping, when our kitchen was on paper, I thought I would use the counter next to the fridge for most of it. Our "prep" sink is there and it's in front of a long bank of windows which seemed very pleasant. It turns out I prefer prepping on the peninsula near the range, even though there is no sink there. The sink is behind me and I don't find it a problem at all. I like the openness of the peninsula and the expanse of counter.
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Very nice idea! Funny that in this case KD's necessity to avoid the ''horror'' of countertop mwave led to such an elegant invention! Looks very nice. Now don't you wish that you could get a microwave with a left-opening door? yeah, me too :) . cheers
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eastbaymom
13 years ago
If you don't use it often, is there a pantry where you could tuck it?
jakabedy
13 years ago
We put ours in the pantry. We have a long galley kitchen with a reach-in pantry on either end of the range wall. the right pantry hasmost of the food, and the left pantry had serving pieces, coffee stuff, etc. We added an outlet in the left pantry and stuck the MW in there. It has been a fabulous solution. And putting it in the pantry meant we could put it at the EXACT height we wanted it. Wherever we wanted it to be, that's where the shelf went. No restrictions to the OTR height, under counter height, etc.

I worried a bit at first about losing that space in the pantry, but with all the drawers in the new cabinets, we have surplus space, anyway. It has been fabulous.
davidro1
13 years ago
we tossed our microwave twelve years and managed to get by without.

we built a new kitchen without any microwave.
we left room for a drawer microwave or a built-in which we might buy (one day).
paulabrady
Original Author
13 years ago
I think I am going to consider either a drawer M/W or a pantry one. Thanks everyone.

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