Kompy, I actually did understand you. We're guilty of focussing on the minutiae, show extreme lack of common sense, avoid the obvious and find the most involved that hopefully involves the most circuitous logic requiring a maximal number of moving parts and flashing lights ... I've heard all those leveled and they're probably all true enough. However, there's not an engineer alive (I don't think) that won't strive to make something plumb-level if the requirement (well, in construction it's more a suggestion more than a requirement) is to have it level. Or won't strive to have something square to the nano-radian when the need is to have it square. To go out of the way to make it out-of-level?! I suppose it is overthinking the problem but what an uncomfortable approach?! Really. I'm physically uncomfortable at the thought of someone working to produce a negative pitch on those poor cabs. But then again, remember, this is from the same poster who wanted to install the drawer cabinets upside down so that the open top (which is now the bottom of the cabinet) provides accessible storage space in the toe-kick of the cabinet. Now, why not use the toe-kick drawers, you ask in consternation? Ah! but those are visible from the outside. Someone might cotton on that you are storing things in the toe-kick of the cabinet. By installing the cabinets upside down, you use regular toekicks and noone outside the house need ever know that you periodically open your full-extension bottom-drawers and crawl about halfway into the cabinets to reach through the hole at the bottom to go through the things that you've stashed away beneath the cabinets. I think a trap-door may have been in the picture also. I'm a bit hazy on some of the details and obviously completely confounded by the motivation. Anyhow, want to clarify that while my post(s) may have sounded like a slam, davidro is one of my favorite characters in the whole world these days. He's better than the Simpsons for comic relief when he's truly on. He's the Lucille Ball of construction. I'm always keen to know what other hair-brained scheme he's working up. Now, I think they are crazy as loons and each one tops the other for technically unsoundness, but they get A+++s for originality and even higher scores for comedy. Luv ya, david!

We have a variety of cabinets in our new kitchen and I couldn't be happier after 6 years of use. I find our one deep (24" front to back) fixed shelf cabinet incredibly handy. The bottom shelf is 22.5" deep--I couldn't fit our skewers in a drawer (only 19.5" of usable space front to back) but they fit, just barely, on the bottom shelf of this cabinet. Our rarely used slow cooker (something that doesn't need prime real estate) fits behind our large mixing bowls. This configuration wouldn't have worked in the lesser space of a drawer. The inevitable comment is, "I don't want to have to root around on the floor to get at stuff." In this case, I have one stack of large bowls that has to be removed to get at the slow cooker. This isn't much different from removing the stack of bowls from a drawer to get at the bowl on the bottom. The storage in our old kitchen, mostly fixed shelves in base cabinets, was awful. Having just 1 base cabinet of this type isn't the same. I can pick and choose what goes in this one cabinet as opposed to having everything stored this way. I'm glad we also have some roll out shelves. They're not suitable for every item in the kitchen but I find them really handy for our stock pots, tall stack of different pie plates, small appliances, and pantry items. Do roll outs and fixed shelves offer any benefits? Yes! I love getting a side view of the pie plates so I can identify where in the stack the desired one is. I love that I can reconfigure the storage in these cabinets by adding and subtracting shelves and roll outs at will. If I could do it over again, I would store my pots and pans on roll outs instead of drawers. There is a lot of wasted space above our shallower pots and pans in some of the deep drawers. If I had a cabinet with roll outs instead, I could adjust the spacing of the roll outs to be more efficient and I could add a 3rd roll out to the cabinet. Don't get me wrong, I have lots and lots of drawers. But I am thrilled that I have some other cabinets peppered in. Not every item in my kitchen needs to be at my finger tips 24/7. Trade offs are something we have to live with in planning our kitchens and I gladly traded off having a FEW rarely used items slightly harder to get at to gain the extra space and flexibility our few non-drawer cabinets provide. There is something very impressive about super organized drawers with special slots for storing frying pans on end but what do you do when you purchase a deeper wok pan that doesn't fit into the width of the slots or a 15" frying pan that gets passed down to you when your drawer is designed to hold only fry pans up to 12" wide (the largest size you had when you placed the cabinet order)? The contents of drawers can only be viewed from above.. This works if you have lots of identical objects stacked together. I have certain favorite plates and bowls (cereal bowls and mixing bowls) that I've held on to over the years and I want to see where they are in the stack. The concept of an all-drawer kitchen isn't a new one. My friend put one in 25 years ago. She loved it but she had a storage closet nearby (similar to the walk in pantries full of shelves many have these days) to take overflow items that wouldn't fit in drawers. My kitchen has to hold it all and has to have the ability to adapt as my needs change over the next 30 years. The items I have in my kitchen today are not exactly the same sizes and shapes as the items I had 15 years ago. If I finely tuned all my storage to those needs I'd be in trouble now. I use the large mixing bowls I keep in the fixed shelf cabinet multiple times every day. After opening and closing drawers (including some heavy ones) every time I want something in my kitchen, there's something refreshing about simply opening a light-weight door to easily grab an item on the front part of the shelf. This is also true with our roll out shelves. The most used items are stored toward the front. I don't have to open both doors and pull out the shelf every time I want to grab something. The most used items are in front and I usually just have to open one door and grab. But the lesser used items are still convenient when needed. I have absolutely no desire to have an all-drawer kitchen. When panic set in after I ordered our cabinets, the one thing that calmed me down was thinking about the cabinets that gave me some flexibility and how I could change them to suit my needs if I found that I had neglected something in my planning. It turns out I don't use my kitchen exactly like I thought I would when it was on paper and having the ability to reconfigure some cabinets was a good thing. As far as dish storage, I prefer upper cabinet shelves. Eye level storage is one of my favorites and I love being able to see the plates in a stack. If I want to add to my plate collection, I can move the shelf above my plates up by a notch. A drawer would be too limiting. As my family has aged, our plate usage has changed--our salad/sandwich plate stack has gotten a lot taller because they seem to be the most used. I often see statements during the design process like "you'll want to store your dishes near the dw...." This may be the ideal set up for many but it isn't for me. The dw doesn't take long to unload and having these items close to the points of use makes a lot more sense to me. Our kitchen can get quite hectic when food needs to be plated. It also helps to keep traffic patterns out of the heart of the kitchen when others are setting the table. I also prefer storing ramekins, custard cups, glass measuring cups, mugs, vases and pitchers on upper shelves. I find usefulness in every type of cabinet in our kitchen--upper cabinets and base cabinets with deep fixed shelves, shallow fixed shelves, roll outs, drawers, and super susans. If I only had fixed shelves or only had roll out shelves in my kitchen I would probably complain long and hard about how much I hated them. That would be because I would be forced to store items on them that would be more ideally stored other places. By having a variety of cabinets, I'm able to match the type of storage to the item. I don't find drawers ideal for absolutely everything.

It was pointed out above that "Pull out shelves generaly give you just a little more headroom due to not having a fame member between the drawers. They also can be adjusted to give you more height in one and less in the other" and also that shelves could have a slight advantage "... since 'drawers' are not adjustable like shelves". Using drawers, I managed to get all the height and space advantages of pull out shelves. To explain how will require two concepts: first, I used frameless cabinets. There is no frame member in the front of the cabinet in frameless cabinets. Also, one can build the drawer front to be flush with the drawer's "floor" panel so there is no wasted space like you can see (e.g. at any Ikea) where the drawer front is made larger and overlaps. 2/ Secondly, I installed many interior drawers. They are always shallower than the main drawer. In my case the drawer fronts are all 15" high, to create a standardized look, but the division of space inside is not the same in each pair of main drawer and internal drawer. In one case I have a trio: 2 internal drawers behind a main drawer. Some of these internal drawers are semi-attached to the drawer front by a removable clasp so they get pulled open too when you pull on the drawer front. You could also screw the internal drawer to the drawer front if you make it high enough: then it's a base cabinet version of the "high pantry pullout" which has many drawers screwed onto a single high front. Otherwise, internal drawers are only accessible after you pull open the drawer they are in, and you then pull again on the interior drawer's front. Yes, that makes it two movements, but both require the same muscles and the same position. Interior drawers like these are more for storage or items you want to give a lower priority to on a daily basis. One of the two cutlery drawers requires two movements to open: this is the drawer holding the fancier silverware. We use our regular cutlery more often. Same for staples, and utensils we hardly ever use. We can use internal drawers for them: The bottom large drawers are for the huge bag of rice, flour, sugar etc.

I have used KraftMaid cabinet doors on the Ikea boxes when I had to make some alterations in the laundry room after purchasing a new washer and dryer. Worked like a charm. The Ikea buyers guide includes specs and descriptions of the kitchen cabinets and accessories. I found it helpful as I consider Ikea cabs for my kitchen remodel.