For heavens sake.....................

STAND the 10.5 plates, front to back. Amazon solution, cheap as dirt. 8.7 INCHES DEPTH , so yes it will fit. Adjust the shelf above for easy access.

https://www.amazon.com/Storage-Drainboard-Tomorotec-Drainer-Organizer/dp/B07Z1QQJRW/ref=asc_df_B07Z1QQJRW/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=385177006002&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17555279585963449366&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9005677&hvtargid=pla-847698565861&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=81511520354&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=385177006002&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=17555279585963449366&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9005677&hvtargid=pla-847698565861

Or............. ask the cabinet maker for a low rail.........stand the plates. Obviously you have more room/depth than the photo. Just use same concept.

Or find a drawer, which is much better storage btw. - uppers are good for glassware and not much else...........and is the reason many new kitchens tend to limit uppers.

Or trade for 10 inch plates which is standard dinner plate size.

What others have is no matter. You have what you have, and that includes an INSET door which probably replaced a full overlay. There's a half inch,............just saying. A lovely look - but yes they reduce interior storage

While I don’t totally understand what the inside of your shelf looks like, my first thought was...you know those wire/plastic shelf inserts they sell, with legs so you can double stack items inside your current shelf placement, would something like that lift your plates enough to clear the support piece so the dishes fit?

You mentioned that you tested your plates with the old cabinets. Did you bring your plates and test in the cabinet makers cabinets? Maybe it’s because I’ve lived with 8 different kitchens that I know that all plates don’t fit in all upper cabinets. That said, I love drawers for plates (it makes it so the kids can set the table), so I would encourage to rethink if you could swap where you are storing things. Either way I would talk to the cabinet maker and explain your dilemma. He needs to know so that he can warn people in the future. Sometime people in the trades are hesitant to bring up potential issues to us because we are so insistent on getting things done our way, even if they personally know that it could be better designed for aesthetics or functionality. Also, he might have a solution to modify the box design or create a new cabinet and you would want to get pricing of those options.

The more “normal“ way to build cabinets would be to put backing wood behind the cabinet back so you would never see it. Unfortunately even if you did that unless you increased the overall depth of the cabinet it wouldn’t give you more room you just would have a cleaner look inside.

we don’t have inset but measuring to our face frames which is where your door would be is still leaves 11 inches on our RTAConestoga cabinets. Sounds like they built your boxes on the shallow side. The wire rack sounds like a good fix if you can find one just the right size and you could even store shallower plates underneath or go overlay which would give you an extra 3/4 inch but really you shouldn’t have to.

Adding up 3/4 inch for door and frame and 3/4 inch for backing piece should still leave 10.5 inches except for the thin cab backing. They seem to have taken the 12 inch uppers to literally. Sorry you are in this position.

Can you get one of those racks and store them the other way?
Or yes, maybe put them in drawers instead.
Ugh!!! Good luck!!
....

https://www.houzz.com/products/tray-divider-with-3-sections-11-3-4-x-22-7-16-x-15-7-16-prvw-vr~163179029

Can't you just store the large plates on the middle shelf, with cups, glasses, bowls or salad plates on the bottom? My dinner plates are on the middle shelf of my upper cabinets--not because they don't fit on the bottom, but I don't remember why I started stacking them there. Probably because my kids were younger and needed easier access to bowls, small plates, and cups, more than the large plates.

Here is a pic of our interiors. This is my first post and really appreciate all the responses. What an amazing community- like an advice column and therapy group in one ☺️

Jdesign- I wish we would have sized up slightly and allowed ourself more of a margin for error. We were really trying to maximize our walkway space, but in retrospect, an inch size up on uppers & lowers would have resulted in less headache.

We have a middle adjustable shelf that we can use. We are guilty of overloading our adjustable shelves in our past kitchen which resulted in a lot of breakage, but this may be our most workable option.

Mama Goose & Andrea- I love the suggestion of plates in a drawer, especially if it leads to kids setting tables! Most of our drawers have built-ins for specific kitchenware, but we may end up with a usable drawer. I think we won’t know until we move in if this will work. We are moving from a much larger kitchen to a smaller kitchen with much less lowers storage and drawers.

Mojave Maria, your post is so helpful. We were wondering about cabinets that had the backing hidden. Didn’t realize it’s still the same lost interior space.

As far as clean look- that is a great way to describe it. We put a lot of thought into interior design and did splurge for walnut lined interiors and was hoping for a more clean look. We were a little surprised, but really, we should have looked at some examples of kitchen uppers in-person from our cabinet maker. I feel the two cabinet builders have done some great work for us on other projects. We thought we had hammered out all the details together, but there is no substitute for looking at someone’s construction design in-person to make sure it suits one’s preferences.

Mojave, do you know if backing can be concealed after the fact or is this something that must be designed for from the beginning?

"do you know if backing can be concealed after the fact or is this something that must be designed for from the beginning?"

At this point they would need to take the wall cabinets down and rebuild the boxes completely or add more blocking and put a skin on the inter (costing you another 1/4" on the inside of your box above and below the current blocking. Either fix at this point would more than likely be on your dime as technically they did nothing wrong.

Why "concealed? Are you leaving them open to view?? Not adding the doors? What does it matter, as long as you can store what needs to be stored.?

I get the feeling your shelves are fixed............possibly a result of over thinking, and under thinking the interiors.

Anything is possible, including a fix far, far short of ripping them off the wall, or a do over.

I have Tedd Wood inset cabinets, and the uppers are 12" deep. I can fit 11" diameter plates with no problem.

Here's a photo of the inside:

Your old cabinets were either standard overlay doors or 12" deep inset built on site. Built on site means the back of the cabinet is your WALL. The hanging rails can be done concealed behind the cabinet back or inside as shown. I've seen it done like that before but not often.

Is there any way you can have one "dish cabinet" remade deeper (14-18" deep) so that it looks good with your overall design? Something like my inset display here. The uppers are 13" deep...the pretty glass door cabinet (down to the counter) is 16" deep. Sorry not a great pic...can't find the other pic.

I would just put my plates on the middle shelf and be done with it. But more importantly, I am obsessing over the color of your cabinet. Can you show a picture of the whole kitchen? :-)

How could removing the 3/4” hanging cleat from inside the cabinet and putting it behind the back panel where it should be not give you more room inside if that’s what the dishes are hitting against. Again without knowing how they are constructed (back and bottom) then you will not get the best answer. I already said (above post) what I would do so I won’t repeat. You can consider that from someone who builds cabinets everyday or go with one of the solutions from those who have never.

Our custom cabinets have this same thing, but our doors are not inset. That is the difference. Our plates fit, but barely. If our doors had been inset, they would not have fit.

In your situation, I would find a different solution/store them on a different shelf, But honestly, if you did drawer bases, I would put my plates in the drawers.

Here is an unpleasant and probably unpopular answer. Goods come with an implied warranty of fitness for a specific purpose. I struggle to believe that a cabinet maker isn't obligated to make cabinets that will fit standard dishes.

Believe it or not standard dish sizes come from standard cabinet sizes. Not vice versa. Dishes are designed to fit inside a 12" inset cabinet. Which, I have been told are 12" because in the U.S. that gets you four rips per plywood, but I am dubious about that source.

At any rate, if you are designing a standard fixture in a nonstandard way that makes it incompatible with standard uses, you have a duty to inform customers. It is ridiculous to use "custom" as an excuse for building standard depth cabinets in a nonstandard way.

Having said that, all you have to do is convince your cabinet maker of that without paying your attorney more than your cabinets cost... good luck with that.

They sound like they were added after the install. 1x4 seems overkill.

What is the purpose for them? My cabinets look the same inside. Without any wood pieces added.

I would ask installers to remove the bottom wood piece, have them ripped to 1x1 ... probably don't need it.... or install it in a vertical position, cut to fit, pushed in the corners on each side. But that would limit removable shelf options.

Mine were installed at the top only, with correct screws into studs. Or could install to soffit studs. No problem for 28 yrs when they were installed.

like others said, just put the biggest plates on the middle shelf. if you're worried about overload, have your cabinet maker make a middle support beam for it. or mount a sturdy shelf bracket under it. this on etsy is very strong and comes in custom sizes.

They're called hanging rails and are necessary to screw the cabinet to the wall. Some are in front of the panel....some are in the back behind the panel. If you ordered from a cabinet maker, they are not designers and just want to take orders. Should they have informed you that cabinets wouldn't fit well? I would have. But I'm a designer. Cabinet makers don't want to get in to the nitty gritty details.....it only gets them in trouble (and can open up for more liability) and they don't have time for that. For them, time is money. I'm sure there are some great cabinet makers out there that do both, design and build....not saying they don't exist. But I get calls all the time with people wanting me to design so they can buy from a cabinetmaker. I no longer do that as it took much time and people don't want to pay for good design.

"I struggle to believe that a cabinet maker isn't obligated to make cabinets that will fit standard dishes."

This is a joke, right? :) If you want standard cabinets you go to Lowes/HD. If you want custom, you go custom.

What, exactly, is a "standard dish?"

Unfortunately OP's dishes don't fit. I feel sorry that the cabinets didn't meet OP's expectations. But I am not sure (absent a spec that the cabinet maker failed to follow) that it is the cabinet maker's fault.

OP-- your cabinets look fab (what I can see of them). Love to see more:). I know you will find a simple solution!

I am having inset cabinets (scheduled for delivery in mid-July, can't wait) and when I was going over the cabinets and the specs with my cabinetmaker, they were very upfront about interior depth requirements with inset doors and typical dinner plate sizes, so I ended up with cabinets a bit deeper than originally planned. I must admit I'm a bit surprised that OP's cabinetmaker didn't alert her of this potential problem. It's simply professionalism to do so.

Looking at the pictures, I see these inset strips of wood. Can't they be moved higher up? That way she could still use 3/4s of the first shelf depth for her dinner plates. Just a thought.

@mimimomy - If you want standard cabinets you go to Lowes/HD. If you want custom, you go custom.

There is nothing custom about 12" deep upper cabinets. Give me a break, we have been using 12" deep upper cabinets for more than 2 centuries now. Maybe this cabinet maker uses custom inches too, so maybe their inch isn't an imperial inch, but only 61/64ths of a standard imperial inch. Custom isn't a license to veer from any standard. Custom houses still have to fit on their lots, custom bridges still have to span the distance between two points, custom cars have to fit on the road, custom furniture has to fit through standard doors, I can keep going but why...

I have built plenty of cabinets and, like many cabinet makers today, I cheat the 12" number a bit by extending the face frame 1/2" for inset cabinets. This gives you the improved performance of a dadoed back panel rather than a rabbeted back panel. However, if I was on strict space requirement, I would rabbet the back panel and move the rails so that the bottom rail ends at the cabinet bottom, like we have done for two centuries now... You can cheat the top rail into the cabinet a bit if you want a larger rail but the bottom rail is a no go.

Okie dokie :)

I can't speak to the cabinet construction question, but in terms of layout ... Do you have a lower cabinet drawer that will hold them? Buffet near the dining room table? What about bumping them up to the second shelf of the upper cabinet? There are many useful things that fit in shallow upper cabinets besides dishes so you may be able to switch the plac ment of things around.

I used to have dishes in a lower cab drawer near the dining room table ...just under my silverware drawer, placed so that the person setting the table didn't cross over the cooks workspace. Worked great.

It's time for wall cabinets to be an inch or two deeper. Most kitchens have large islands for food prep, thus wall cabinetry being a little deeper like 13" doesn't affect the functionality of countertop use but adds so much flexibility for storage, particularly for food and spices but of course for dishes too.

As a side note, from time to time, a tone of blame is expressed which seems unkind. The original poster is asking a simple question, no need to criticize her planning skills or the quality of her tradesmen. Please read your comments aloud before you hit the "submit" button and ask yourself if you would actually say the comment to a real person standing in the same room, like a paying client or your best friend, before you post your opinion here. Life is too short to be snarky, please be gracious. I'm sorry that you are having this issue, Chantelle. Keep us posted!

I always order inset wall cabinets 13" deep. I believe this is standard practice among kitchen designers who routinely work with inset cabinetry. I also oftentimes order my base cabinets at 25" for the same reasons. But as far as I know, it is not an industry standard so I'm not sure if there is a solid case against the cabinet maker for not doing this.

Sissyphus, thank you for bringing the symmetrical screws (& possibly non-cabinet screws) to my attention! At the very least, it warrants a closer look. Will try to get another look and pics tomorrow.

Kitchenplace- I think that deeper display looks good with your setup, especially by giving it a glass feature to set it apart. And interesting about being built on-site- that would make sense that using the wall for a back would provide more interior space. I don’t have the old cabinets any more to know if that was the case.

Bry911- you sound like a knowledgeable cabinet builder when it comes to different building techniques.

It does seem there is a consensus among some here that by professional standards, he would inform us if it wouldn’t fit standard dishes, but at the same time he is not obligated to do so nor is he is negligent or in breach of his contract.

We’ll probably need to move to see if we can find an alternate solution as many have suggested.

Hope to have more pics soon!

Appreciate the wisdom cup of kindness. Who knew kitchen cabinets could spur such a heated debate. The threads taken on a life of its own, but appreciate that most have been gracious and thoughtful with their suggestions.

Kayozzy- it’s not finished and doors have not arrived. I think I’m under two weeks out until completion and I’ll update with more pics then :)

To the original poster. I am so sorry that your cabinets are not what you expected. I like the idea of asking the cabinet maker to make you a special raised shelf to bypass the 1 x 4 blocking. I would think he would do so at no cost to you.

mdln

Unfortunately "custom" does not guarentee high quality. I have Shiloh inset and 12" platters fit fine in upper cabinets.

mdln - Are your Shiloh cabinets 12", 13" or 15" in depth? I am getting Shiloh inset and expressed my concern that a standard plate may not fit in the cabinets. My KD insisted that I had nothing to worry about, so I went with the 12" depth. Now I am concerned.

First off, I know nothing;^)

When we moved into this house, the upper cabinets did not fit our dishes. We had site built, old cabinets from the 30's. Ours look like they were built like yours- rail along top and bottom created with a 1x4. I asked DH, who is an engineer and wood worker if he could carve out a groove so they would fit. We were 1/4" from closing the door. He said no problem. Marked it and carved out a shallow scallop, once the bottom plates were in and we got past the 1x4 good to go for the rest. 😁

Good god.........It has so many simple solutions. .......all of which have been offered. Other than to realize your CUSTOM guy isn't the ultimate KD. . Unless directed by the ultimate KD who would have warned you with regard to the inset issue and space loss. Which ALSO applies to drawer bases.

That coincidentally is a far better place for dish ware and far more ergonomically friendly

@nhb22, the interior shelf is 12". There are no obstructions to the full 12", the inset door does not interfere with the 12" depth.

They were the "standard" size, I did not modify the depth. Sorry, I don't recall the cabinet order specific dimensions.

The existence of a solution, doesn't erase the problem. Are you telling me an experienced cabinet maker was not aware of this problem?

The first step is to communicate this problem to the cabinet maker. There are only three possible scenarios here:

1. This is the first time this cabinet maker has made standard inset cabinets.

2. Every person who had this problem before you, solved it on their own without reporting it to the cabinet maker. In that case, shame on them.

3. He knew of the problem and didn't inform you. In that case, shame on him.

I can't imagine a customer having issues with the construction of their project and not reporting it to me. When I commented above, I couldn't believe the cabinet maker was unaware of this problem, but given the number of, "take care of this on your own," responses, I am starting to wonder if the cabinet maker even knows. I would make it a big enough deal that the cabinet maker thinks to warn the next customer.

At any rate, talk to them.

I so agree!!!

Thank you so much, mdln. I am getting anxious about seeing our cabinets in person. Not meaning to change the subject of this thread, but have you ever posted photos of your cabinets here?

I have the 12” upper cabinets and I keep a few 12 “ plates in them. However, I keep most of my plates in my drawers.

Oops, I meant 11” dishes.

@Chantelle - It does seem there is a consensus among some here that by professional standards, he would inform us if it wouldn’t fit standard dishes, but at the same time he is not obligated to do so nor is he is negligent or in breach of his contract.

This is going to be a long response to your question so bear with me.

The exchange of goods (commerce) is governed by the Uniform Commercial Code. Section 2-315 of the UCC states, "Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and the buyer is relying on the seller's skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose."

We have seen some obvious examples of this being violated, such as when a cabinet salesperson designs a kitchen where drawers can't open because they are hitting the range handle.

In your case it is far less clear, because

• There are some ranges of standard U.S. plates (the range comes from variations in the firing process), but 10.5" to 11" would be the standard range. So there may be some gray area in there. Certainly if your uppers have less than 10" of clear space that would be evidence that they are out of compliance, but I am not sure having 10.5" of clear space would be.
• Are storing plates in upper cabinets common enough that a cabinetmaker would have reason to know that is a particular purpose of them. I suspect the answer to this is unequivocally, yes.
• Finally, and this is the real gray area here, does a 1 x 4 in the bottom of a cabinet render them unfit for the intended purpose? The cabinet maker will argue that the cabinets have ample space above the 1 x 4 to store plates so they are still fit for that purpose. That one is 6 to 5 and pick 'em and I wouldn't want to be your representation on that one.

Oddly enough, if you had a kitchen designer you would not be protected under the UCC as the design is not commerce, it is services. That is not to say a designer would be bad, only that no designer doesn't absolve the cabinet maker.

As to the other question, if the cabinetmaker is aware of this problem, does he have a duty to inform you? The answer to that question is pretty clearly yes. This is where all the people shouting, "but its custom," are clearly wrong. Because it is custom, the cabinet maker holds himself out to be an expert on building cabinets and therefore has a duty to mitigate problems that might occur. However, good luck getting him to admit in writing that he was aware of the problem and didn't inform you.

---

Just to be clear, I believe the cabinet maker is wrong. That doesn't mean I believe you are going to prevail. I think you have a legitimate beef, I also think you could use this information and a bit of bluster to negotiate a more favorable position, but that favorable position is likely a discount on some remedy rather than a remake.

Good luck

ETA: Whether or not the cabinet maker has design skills, or is a woodworker or whatever, is irrelevant. You can't sell cabinets and simultaneously claim you know nothing about cabinets. If you don't know anything about cabinets then you can't be in the business of selling them.

The cabinet maker didn't design an unusable cabinet. He designed a cabinet that won't accommodate large plates on the bottom shelf. Do I think he should have consulted with the OP about the bottom hanging rail? Yes, but the cabinet is not unusable for storing dishes.

OP here. Really appreciate all the feedback. Just want to remind as we stated previously, we will pursue one of these simple solutions. People are welcome to continue with suggestions or (go on a tangent from topic ha!), but it will be for another’s benefit if they stumble onto this thread in the future with similar dilemma.

We plan to store dishes in a drawer or middle shelf and we also love nhb22’s idea to bypass 1x4 blocking by adding in a shelf on bottom. We will send pics of our final solution at a later date once we get in and sort our stuff!

On the note of our cabinet building duo. The fact that they use interior blocking on bottom, while perhaps not standard in this application, may give a false impression that they turn out inferior cabinetry. Our main concern when we chose them, was the potential for communication issues (based on previous experience). The cabinetry itself is well-built (and beautiful in our opinion).

Thank you everyone. Again, we have our solutions. We still may peruse and comment on this thread and please remember to be kind when posting (Jan Moyer)!

Zoomed out pic.

Your cabinets are beautiful. If you want to keep your dinner plates on the bottom shelf, another possibility I can think of is to have a shelf put in at the bottom where you can slide in a platter that matches your dinner set. The plates could stack above and would avoid the blocks.

IDK if that would work for you, but it might make it look more intentional

@Chantelle, I'm glad you have settled on a simple solution. I'm surprised nobody suggested getting 11 inch plates. My sister had trouble fitting her plates in her dishwasher, lol.

My laundry room cabinets have those rails too! I didn’t even notice till I saw your post. Our cabinet maker made them 2 mths ago he’s going to start on our kitchen end of this week. My plates are 11” they fit inside the 12” laundry room cabinet but I don’t have inset doors. I believe they are full overlay? could be partial? When I do a search for pics of full overlay I get completely covered and ones like mine. The drawer cabinet is my future master closet

I thought I was the only one with this problem! Nobody i spoke to knew what I talking about. i solved it by resting my dinner plates on top of a metal 9” round Anolon pan to clear the back cabinet hanging/support beam.

I just happened on this thread.

Those storage racks to store plates vertically is a great idea!

Storing plates in stacks in a drawer sounds good theoretically, but I don't know.

I have heard that you shouldn't stack more than 12 china plates, or they will craze.

The vertical storage is just brilliant!