You may need fillers so drawers do not hit doorway trim, when you open them.

Congrats on your soon-to-be new house! Our kitchens are roughly the same. To answer your question, you need fillers on each end of the cabinet run in the example you gave. Otherwise, I believe you run the risk of your drawers scraping the wall when you open them (or the door trim, as mentioned). I think that for base drawers you can get away with 1.5 inch filler, but for cabinets with doors (for ex., your uppers) you'd need 3 inches. That's so your door handles won't bang into the wall.

The many IKEA design experts here can give you exact figures based on your plan and correct me if I'm wrong. But I know that when I was asking for design advice here on my own kitchen, no one drew a plan with less than 1.5 inches of filler on my base drawer cabs. (at the beginning and at the end of the run)

Thank you mdln and cs929 for your feedback - I knew I must be missing something! And thanks too for the congratulations - I'm very excited, but slowly shifting into overwhelmed territory. Knowing I have the wisdom of gardenweb at my fingertips definitely makes me feel better.

^ what she said! The walls likely are not straight and even, so a small filler between the drawer and the wall allows the drawers to open without difficulty. Also what mdln said. However, cabinets can butt up against each other without filler between them. Also, you need filler between a fridge and adjoining cabinet (if the cabinet is not recessed back from the door) or wall to allow the door to fully open.

I have 1.25 " of filler between the upper cabinets and the walls, and cabinets that come right to the window trim. So it looks to me that you have enough space for those 36" cabinets.

Beyond needing fillers, you need a KD. These are two second issues in a design by a professional.

Thanks Sophie, I really value your input. I definitely intend to work with a KD. However, since I won't own the house for another 6 weeks I thought I'd try to educate myself a bit in the meantime.

One thing I learned from Sophie (too late in my case!) but most KD do not allow the extra (3" each side I believe) width between upper cabinets/capture space above the cook top.

Also when it comes time for counter top measurements, size and profile of cabinet doors and drawers and hardware may call for a bit deeper than average counter top. Extra depth absolutely needed if using a furniture base not a toe kick

Since you are in the educating yourself stage (smart) hope this helps

What is capture space?

@friedajune Thanks for the info.

For my uppers my filler is 3/4". which allows them to open to 90 degrees.

I only have one lower that goes into a wall and that is my wine fridge. The filler for that is 2" as the door needs to open more that 90 degrees to slide out the racks.

You need 3/4 starter trim with everywhere a full overlay door cabinet meet a wall. Will partial overlay ,not always. If you have a door frame or other obstacle the door/ might hit, you may need more than that 3/4 starter trim. You also need filler between any adjoining two cabinets of different depths. The latter rule goes for partial overlay cabs as well.

If you are doing IKEA, you will most likely also need a cover panel on each cabinet on either side of the window so the exposed sides match the fronts. That will add another 1/2" each.

Thanks m_gabriel, I (clearly) hadn't thought of that! Back to the drawing board...