Cotehele - Wow... what a gorgeous kitchen! Thanks for posting the eye candy as well as your layout. There sure is a lot of storage space in the shallow cabinets. Right now (depending what we find after we take down the drywall), we are planning a shallow cabinet facing the walkway, not in the kitchen per se. I hope we will be allowed to do that! Lynnski - I can easily see how the short pull outs could be really useful for cans. I have seen something similar to that idea with all the cans laying flat so that you could read the labels. Marcolo - Now you are just scaring me! LOL Especially that last photo! But it does give me pause... if I had two doors covering the base cabinet, maybe having two pull outs side by side, one behind each door, would be a better way to handle it. That way, you didn't have to open both doors to pull out one shelf. Hmmmmm Oh no... I just looked back at that last image and they have toe kick drawers! Might have to think about those little buggers :) Fori - Yes... you are correct. I am definitely on the short side. Livewireoak originally suggested the 30" deep cabinets and 15" uppers... I didn't even think of another option. But sure... add 6" here, add 6" there, is there any reason why not to go to 18" deep uppers? Sounds good to me! Of course, now I might have to use one of Marcolo's contraptions posted above to enjoy all that space! As for the dry cereal... what else is for dinner in a minute or less minutes when you haven't gone shopping! I have already measured the cereal boxes... did you know they are not all the same size? LOL Good idea bout the spice drawer. I should do some planning there! I love the input and all the creative ideas. Thank you!

I think those pull-down shelves are cool, but they waste a lot of space, I think. The overall mechanism is just over 10" deep, with 8-1/2" of usable depth between the rails. Sizes given are inside cabinet width  usable shelf width is 5" less (requires 2-1/2" of clearance each side). They'd be good for people w/ real mobility problems, but that's not me, not yet. The pegboard pullout right over the main work area would be cool-- Also, I love back-of-the-door storage for uppers--spice racks on the inside of the door, cup hooks for hanging measuring cups & spoons, racks to hold packets of salad-dressing flavoring. I have a box I put my spices in; it works sort of like a drawer, except that I threw out the runners that would have kept it anchored to the shelf, bcs I figure I wldn't be able to see in it then.

Athome--I've drooled over Mama's kitchen so many times. Everything about it just seems right, IYKWIM. I wish I could do that in my corner, but I need the counter space for my two appliances. But I'm still going to give it one last measuring tonight just to see..... ;) Thanks! Blfenton--Thanks for looking again. Alright. I promised myself while making lasagne tonight that I wanted to enjoy eating the delicious mess knowing I had put this decision to bed. So I'm going with my gut instinct from Rhome's renderings. !!!!!!!!! #1 !!!!!!!!!!!! Decision done. Many thanks Rhome for helping me with this one. Seeing the black and white turn into 2D color makes all the difference. I owe you, again. Thank you everyone! Now back to my dining room cabinets decision....

Katy, Do you have a layout diagram that you can post? There are some very gifted GW'ers here, both professional and non-professional, who have an excellent eye and superb ideas. Not knowing how small your small kitchen really is, I would be reluctant to give up that corner counter space. I do have a corner upper- love the extra deep storage it allows. We were originally going to have two upper cupboards go all the way to the counter. I love the look- was excited about storing my tea bags in little drawers... but long story short... the bottom part of the cupboards didn't arrive with our initial cabinet order, and we have since discovered that we are using that counter space. So, we are really glad for the 'mistake'. Never having had a really long run of useable counter space before, I didn't know how valuable it is. Now, two, and when kids are home, 3 or even 4 adults can work in kitchen comfortably. If the area is big enough for a MW- that might be a good spot- but I'd leave counter space under it.