Warming drawers aren't particularly well insulated, but they don't get particularly hot! Most people who use them for accumulating things like pancakes or fried chicken, which are made in small batches, much prefer it in the top position, next to the stove. If you can put a hot pot on your counter, you have nothing to worry about. If you're putting in laminate, the plywood underneath should insulate it. I'm wondering if the person with the hot utensils had a compartmented drawer cabinet (with wood separators between drawers), or if it was just an open box with the drawers all connecting. If the latter, that would explain it. Just a thin drawer bottom between the utensils and the WD works.

My cab maker said our top drawers will be 4 3/4" and with rails there will be 1 3/4" space in between for hardware. Springroz has 3" space in between and Christine has 6" drawers with 3" in between. That could be the difference. Out of our 26 drawers, only 8 are small top drawers so maybe I should do slab on those. Looking back I do like the look for the top drawer. I was just "scared" that without a bead they may be too plain but I think with everything else that goes on in a kitchen it will probably look great anyway! Just making sure with cab maker all the top drawers are 4 3/4" before I make a final decision : )

I have had the Sektion drawer in drawers since April. Overall, I really like them. I don't find them cumbersome to use. It is easier to keep the items you use most often in the bottom section so that you don't have to then pull out the top section to grab something. When you open the drawer, the main drawer (bottom) is exposed. To get at the interior drawer, you have to then pull that one open. I don't think you can "lock" the top drawer so that it's the first one you see when you open it, but you can kind of grab it as you're opening the main drawer so they both open at once. I do like that I can separate things so that I don't have one huge drawer with too much stuff in it. For example, I have my baking utensils in the top drawer, then my general utensils in the bottom. Every single top drawer you see in my kitchen has a drawer within a drawer. The lower drawers are just regular drawers. In the island, I have my pot lids in the top interior drawer and my pots below them in the main drawer. It works really well to keep things organized. One note, which IKEA may have addressed by now: The screws from the cabinet hardware stick out and bump up against the interior drawer, causing the paint to rub off. I bought some adhesive drawer bumpers to prevent this. I've attached a photo showing this. And I'll also attach some photos of the kitchen itself, which I am super happy with. Happy to answer any other questions!

We are refinishing our shaker cabinets in a small lower level kitchen area. We'll be leaving the cabinet handles under the sink where they were (vertical placement), but we're adding this edge pull handle to the right side (garbage pull out), on the top edge of the door: Amazon.com: Richelieu Hardware BP989819230 Lincoln Collection 7 9/16-in (192 mm) Center, Contemporary Edge Pull, White : Everything Else