All drawers and I will never go back! Your designer does not have to live in your kitchen, you do.

If it's looking busy, try making bigger/wider drawers. One big drawer stack rather than 2 small ones. We lined up all of our drawers so that there is horizontal flow throughout the kitchen, if that makes sense. 2 deeper lower drawers with a narrower one on top.

This is a battle you want to fight!

Seems that I am in the right place! I'm so glad to hear there there are so many drawers in each of your kitchens and that everyone is so happy with them.
@Fori, I think you are right. Keep my mouth shut and draw in the drawers later.
I have to admit though, I did have a panic moment when I thought perhaps I should have a few cabinets.

Most of my cabinets are 36" wide as I thought that would give me the most flexibility.

I've got 5 stacks of 3 drawers, 2 deep on the bottom and one shallow on top.

I have one stack of 4 drawers next to the stove.

I have my trash pull out which I also consider a drawer since it is on glides.

I have my double oven stack which has a drawer under the ovens and a cabinet on top.

Then I have 2 sinks and both of them are cabinets.

So basically, all drawers, all the time! ;)

Introduce your KD to the function and beauty of drawers. Future clients will thank you.

My old kitchen had three 36" lowers. One was drawers, one was a cabinet with pull outs and one was a traditional cabinet. I had one of each. Pull outs were ok but not great, didn't hold as much as drawers. Cabinet was awful. Had to sit on the floor to see what was in it or to clean it. The drawers were the best! Held a ton, sturdy and easy to get at everything. My new kitchen is all drawers except for a tray cabinet and under the sink.

Bizzy shmizzy. A kitchen is a busy place, that's the nature of kitchens.

I don't think you'll find any argument against drawers on this site. I think you'll find that everyone here considers the only drawback to drawers to be their higher price -- and it isn't all that significant.

However, I don't plan to go with 100% drawers:

- I am not doing drawers under the sink. Yes, you can do them, but they're a custom item, and I don't think they add enough storage to justify the cost.

- I'm doing a pop-up shelf for my Kitchen Aid mixer, which has to be behind a cabinet.

- I'm doing one tall, skinny cabinet near the sink, which will be for cutting boards, cooling racks, and similar things.

- I'm doing a pull-out shelf (which you could argue is a modified drawer) in the butler's pantry, which will hold the crock pot, the canner and a couple other large items. This'll be two deep drawers, so it'll hold larger items. You really should go through "your stuff" to see what won't fit into a drawer -- you'll find a few things, but probably not a bunch.

We have all drawers except for the sink cabinet. We also deaded out the two corners to allow for drawers to be used on as much frontage space as possible. We have a very deep drawer adjacent to our range for standing up our baking sheets, cutting boards and larger serving platters.

Now that I think about it, the trash pull-out and the condiment pull-out are more like drawers than cabinets!

Drawers on one of the few things all of Garden Web agrees on. As far as I can tell, just a few things are arguably better as cabinets vs. drawers:

1) pantry storage, as long as it is shallow cabinets so things don't get lost in the back -- most package food/spices has the label on the front, not the top, so lining it up on shelves is better for viewing everything than having it in drawers

2) glass storage -- it works fine in drawers, but just as fine or fine-er in uppers or a shallow hutch

3) tray storage

4) sink cabinet (because of the plumbing)

5) storage that is higher than your chest (because you can't see into drawers that are too high)

6) some outsizeds or specialty items -- cake stands, a salad bowl that you could practically wash a baby in, a giant basket, giant soup pot, dish drying rack, etc.

7) display -- obviously, you can't display dishes in drawers. You need glass cabinets or open shelving.

" I'm not getting down on the floor to get the required whatever out of the back of the cabinet. I cannot believe that I actually used to do that"

amen!

^^^ exactly why I want to get rid of the drawers!!

Just in case there is someone, somewhere, who isn't convinced, here's a before and after of my kitchen.
Base cabinet, stupid half shelf in the back:

After - one drawer for canisters of sugar, flour, etc, another for cake pans (which you can see stacked up on the little shelf in the back. Admittedly, not everything from the first pic went into two drawers, but most of it did, with room to spare, and far more accessible.

Ah, heck! Just get the cabinets, getting down on your hands and knees to reach to the back of the cabinets will help you appreciate "busy"....

What is that KD thinking?

Drawers are good. More drawers are better.

I'm putting in all drawers except for under the sink (and half of that will be a trash pullout) and one 12 inch pullout that will hold dog food in a trash can. I do have an original built in Hoosier cabinet that we are keeping that has some lower cabinet space so it can hold a few things that don't fit in drawers if necessary, but I honestly can't think of anything that I will keep on there that couldn't go in a deep drawer. I would only use cabinets where you have a specific storage need that can't be met with a drawer.

And I'm honestly a little suspicious of a kitchen designer that is advocating for cabinets over drawers. Especially on the grounds that drawers look too busy. Function over form (though I don't think drawers look busy). I'd be concerned that he or she would sacrifice function over form in layout and other choices as well.

Fori said, " Also, if you have a countertop overhang anywhere, you kind of have to do doors and not drawers."

Do you mean like a several inch overhang? And not the 1 1/2 or so that is normally there?

I have an average-sized kitchen (roughly 10x10) and all of my bottom cabinets are drawers, save for the sink cab. Best decision I ever made. Storage galore, which is especially important if you don't have a lot of square footage to begin with. I guess having all drawers is not for everyone, but for this house, I have my dream kitchen. :)

I keep reading posts on GW about designers advocating for more cabinets and fewer drawers and I'm starting to wonder if we're experiencing some kind of invasion of drawer-hating aliens. That is one planet I never want to visit. D:

Except for the sink and trash pullout, I'm doing all drawers. I'm putting narrow 11.5" wide pullout drawers (2 short drawers on top, 1 tall drawer underneath them) on each side of range. The tall drawers have tall sides and can hold baking sheets, cutting boards etc in one, and possibly oils, flour & sugar canisters in the other. Haven't decided yet, but I think they're going to be very functional. Time will tell. :)

Also two 36" 3-drawer cabinets in island and 21", 24" and 33" 3-drawer cabinets on perimeter.

In 1986, when we moved into our previous home, we redid the 100-year old kitchen. We were much less savvy then and of course didn't have GW for help. We did have a KD. We put in cabinets with pull-outs, not drawers. A friend who was much more into home design and decor than I was asked why - at that point, drawers had never even occurred to me, and she explained why drawers are so much more functional. Fast forward to 2006 when we redid that kitchen, and 2014, when we redid our current kitchen - trust me, no more cabinets, all drawers!

Two lower cabinets, one under farmhouse sink, one 15" next to stove. (Now, I even regret not making that drawers.) Everything else is drawers.

I like how it looks, there are plenty of upper cab doors to balance the drawers. Upper cabs, lower drawers.

If you like getting down on your knees with a headlamp on, get lower cabinets. Otherwise, drawers!

I should note that I did away with a corner cabinet so I could have a couple of the drawers. I know some like their corner cabs, but I hate having things fall off the Lazy Susan or trying to clean back there.

designsaavy - I think it's a matter of what you keep on your lazy/super susan. I only keep big stuff like large soup kettles and crock pots there, so nothing falls off. It's the best storage I've ever found for those big things. Finally having a pantry with pull out shelves meant all the small stuff could go there. Each kitchen and each cook is a little different, so there are many solutions for storage, but I think we can all agree that having cabinets for the purpose of "balancing" the drawers is a figment of a non-cook's imagination.

Lol, "balancing" drawers. I agree. Can never have too many. The kitchen we just took out had only base cabinets with 2 small drawers at top and 2 doors with that crazy little shelf in the back. The only drawer stack I had was a 15" 4-drawer.

I think a few things work better on pullouts, which are still shallow sided drawers behind doors.

It is easier for me to lift some appliances from the front, grasping them at the bottom, and it is easier for me to lift something like a stack of nested cast iron pots from the front, rather than reaching down into a drawer with deep sides and pulling the whole stack straight up.

suzanne, I am thinking of doing the same thing with my corner. Storing that big stuff. Do you have the lazy, or super susan? I really want the kind (lazy?) that has the door attached that swings around with it. But if that is the lazy susan, will it hold that big stuff?

We are in the process of our remodel and did all drawers. It sounds like your designer's complaint is the 'look'. Can you change some of the drawer sizes so it is less busy? We are doing an open galley and the long wall of cabinets there will be 3 banks of 3 drawer storage all the same size. So it will be a clean line all the way across.

If Sherri likes the look, who cares if the KD does?

Comparing drawers to lower shelf-cabs is really different than comparing them to pull outs behind doors. I have pull outs now and like them a lot for accessing nested items, as pal described. In the new house, we did do all drawers essentially, so I put the nested pans on their sides for the most part (with dividers). It will take up more room to store the stack, though.

(I admit I don't get the scorn for pull outs because "they take two motions rather than one." The day I don't have that extra second to open a door is the day I need to re-think several aspects of my life.)

I prefer pull-outs for nested and stacked pots and pans. I am keeping one cabinet for that purpose. I also prefer the chromed Rev A Shelf pullout for this purpose over the wood pull-outs. ( air circulation, don't have to worry about a speck of left behind grease on the bottom of a pan) For anything else my choice is drawers.

I mention that because the KD probably has more experience with kitchen remodels and may be bringing up a point of busy-ness that she hadn't thought of before. I'm sure there is a way to give it a cleaner look (or whatever the exact objection is) and still have drawers. Of course if Sherri is fine with it...go for it! But it doesn't hurt to explore it, IMO. Just tell the designer "I want drawers...now make it happen" :)

Beth - a Lazy Susan is the one with a pole up the middle

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Both kinds are available with hinged doors or the attached doors you like, depending on the cabinet line. You might even choose a cabinet line *because* it has the door you like.

It does hold the big stuff! Here's mine:

I am not sure exactly what my kd thinks is busy looking. I have an L shaped kitchen. My space is rather broken, so I have my cooktop wall which I am not quite settled on.... probably 36" 3 drawer stack with 15" pullouts on either side. I have another run to the right of that, which is my steam oven over conventional oven and beside that is 2 36" drawer stacks (4 per stack). And finally perpendicular to that is my fridge wall which is 30" drawer stack, fridge and 18" pantry. I don't need it to look like a magazine spread. I just want it to function, and look "nice".

If that 18" pantry is full depth I would suggest either making it a pullout or having roll outs installed. Those deep narrow pantries are black holes. I would consider make that 30" drawer stack narrower and making the pantry 21" at minimum width and preferable 24" if that is your only pantry and you sometimes buy larger items or plan to store appliances there etc.

Having lived with a lot of sizes, I like minimum 21" widths for cabinets best followed by wider drawers where applicable. 18" cabs simply don't function well (IMO) except as pullouts or narrow drawer stacks. My present kitchen will be getting a tall 15" width pantry pullout next to the fridge but that is not my sole pantry area. It just happens to be what will fit the space best when we do it.

I may lose my Houzz membership for this, but we didn't go for all drawers in our re-model. Try as we may, we couldn't warm to the appearance of all drawers, so we went for a traditional mixture of cabinets and drawers. This may redeem me - the cabinets do have roll out shelves.

suzanne, thank you for getting back. Had never seen or heard of the super susan with the attached door. Encouraging. I don''t know why, but I just can't warm up to the idea of the hinged door for some reason. Plus it's one more movement, to me, whereas with the attached door I could just swing and pull. In a hurry, this sounds easier to me. Thanks again!

We have 8 stacks of 4 drawers each, plus a tall 'drawer' next to the range for baking sheets. Our drawers are 4"/7"/7"/11". The bottom drawers incorporate the toe kick area for extra depth. I also made some double drawers, with a shallow drawer inside a bigger drawer for storing smaller stuff. I used frameless construction for maximum space, and there are no places for things to get stuck and jam the drawer. In our old house, the there was a 2" tall framing member over the top drawers, and sure enough, some long object would tip up and jam the drawer.

Our kitchen is all about function. The only cabinets are under the sinks, and we have no uppers. Since we're not officially moved in yet (but we are using the kitchen), time will tell how it all works, but so far, we love it. I just worry about how two senior citizens are going to remember where everything is!

mushcreek, I did not realize one could just make the bottom drawer deeper as opposed to having the shallow toe kick drawers. Thanks for mentioning that.

mushcreek how much extra height in your drawer did you get when you extended into the toe kick area?

I just laughed at another designer telling you what you want. Oh, the hubris.

I, too, have drawers. I have so many drawers I've taken doors off base cabinets and retrofitted them with drawers. Trash-pull-outs, just plain deep ones, under my apron sink, you name it. I have no intention of crawling around on the floor for anything. The only purpose I see for a cabinet is those that hang on the wall, where drawers would be too high to look into.

I've got, Let's see.
3, 36" 3-drawers
1, 24" 3-drawer,
a 24" 2-drawer,
2, 24" misc. configuration drawers,
1, 27" 3-drawer,
2, 15" 3-drawers,
2 trash pull-outs, (which look like regular doors, vs. drawers!)
a useless spice pull-out thingy.
That's just in the kitchen.

In the MBR I have
1, 36" 1-drawer,
2, [dumb - for decoration only] 6" spice drawer things,
3, 3-drawer 24" cabs, and
3, 24" 4-drawer cabs. The 4-drawers are so shallow they're equally as [stupid] useless as a skinny spice pull-out, so like my MB, I'm going to remove one of the drawers, build a bigger, deeper one and put both drawer fronts on top so it still looks like 4 drawers.

See... it can "look better" but still have hidden functionality. It doesn't have to be a different type cab just to please the designer.

I also support the idea of wider drawers. I am not fond of my 15"ers, but I got them at a reuse center, stripped them and they are particularly gorgeous. 18 is the smallest I'd go by choice. I have a couple of very worthless 12" wide drawer bases and have retrofitted them into something else. Love, LOVE my 21 to 27" wide ones.

I think roll-outs are [stupid] a waste of a nice door to bang up. Sorry dovetail. However, I do think they have their place in taller pantries, where you couldn't see what you have in a drawer. They really are just drawers without a drawer face, so storage-wise, they're better than a reach-in cabinet, I guess.

It just seems like function, once you actually have it, is like a fantastic new world!

My scorn for pullouts isn't because it takes two steps, it's because A: they hold less stuff than drawers in the same space, and B: mine, even though heavy duty etc., eventually failed under the weight of my cast iron and Crueset pans.

I'll just add to the chorus of drawers, drawers, drawers. I have five stacks of drawers (plus under the double ovens,) and I'd gladly have five more.

Places where I don't have drawers: above double ovens (trays-so useful,) under sinks, corner cabinet, kitchen aid mixer lift cabinet (in retrospect, I wish that was more drawers,) trash cabinet (this is unusual, perhaps, but I love it as is.)

Appliances I have in drawers that fit just fine: crock pot, vitamix mixer, panini grill

I too have all drawers except for the sink cabinets. We even did corner drawers/lazy susan combined in our corner. The drawers are amazing! When looking at our kitchen from the living room (open floor plan), you can't see most of the drawers since they are on the back of the island and/or hidden by the island. One of our friends came over yesterday and said 'wow that's too many drawers!' but I don't care what people think- they are so functional and I am so so happy with them. They have probably never had to plan a kitchen :-P

The best thing I did when planning my drawers was to measure EVERYTHING I was going to be storing, to figure out the best heights for the drawers. Most everything I have fits exactly height- wise into the drawers, so there is very little wasted space. Also, planning where I was going to put everything really helped to make the kitchen plan better (I think) :-))

Christina, it's likely that if the pull-out hardware failed, so would the drawer hardware have failed. You definitely need heavy-duty hardware for either if they're going to hold multiple cast iron pots and pans (or heavy dishes). As for holding less, I've had both, and pull-outs are narrower (necessarily, because they have to clear the insides of the cabinet to open) but it's only an inch or two on each side, so unless you're really strapped for space, they work fine. I liked the lower sides and fronts of the pull-outs, but I like the single-function operation of drawers even more. It isn't about time, it's about function - why have to do two things when one will accomplish the same thing? Also, the insides of the doors were scraped when I had roll-outs, becuase often the doors weren't fully opened when the roll-outs were pulled out.

I am trying to finalize the sizes and placement of my drawers, but my
designer keeps putting in cabinets. It's too busy, I'm told. You need
more cabinets for balance.

Tell your designer that he/she will be your EX designer real soon now because you want drawers, not cabinets.

You need FUNCTION, not balance.

Beth, I know what you mean about the hinged door on a super susan. I don't know if I would care for that either - even though I don't have a problem with the hinged doors on my easy-reach uppers. But I don't think I've ever seen a super susan with doors that rotate around with the tray.

I had two lazy susans with rotating door, and I hated them. There wasn't a lot of room, and on the one on which I put a crock pot and a couple of other heavier things, the shelves eventually slipped on the pole, and had to be readjusted (every year or so).

I went with an unpopular solution here on GW - I angled the base cabinet, and put in a full super susan. My kitchen is custom, so I was also able to put a drawer above. Since my kitchen doesn't have room for a lot of drawers, I wanted all I could get! My Susan holds lots of small appliances, colanders (it's near the sink), and I can tuck small, hardly-used things back on the shelf, behind the turntables It's one of my favorite things about my new kitchen.

All drawers. Not one single door in a base cabinet. My platters, sheet pans and large cutting boards are in an upper cabinet.

Super Susan and a deep drawer.

An extra deep drawer can be modified to do this:

Tupperware solution:

I've got lots more drawer pictures.

One possibility you may want to discuss with your KD. Select a simple style of drawer. In my case, I selected plain slab drawers and traditional raised panel doors.

We have 25 drawers including the 6 in the island.

Ann, thank you for the pics. I now remember your set up, you posted it once before and I remember thinking, THAT is what I want. I will have to see if I can make that happen, as I too am looking at a rediculously small amount of storage. Even if I do put some custom cabs in another wall (drawers are not possible), I'm pretty sure I'm looking at one bank of 3 drawers around 33". That's it. So I really, really have to make the most of what I've got. Love your set up! (and I didn't think a Super came with the attached door either...)