Cape Cod Kitchen Design & Usability Idea: Storage

This is the first in a occasional series of tips about designing and making more user-friendly your new kitchen. Storage for pots and pans.

It makes me crazy to see kitchens with nothing but marching rows upon rows of doors. Why? because it usually means that the cook is wasting time and steps every time they want to retrieve cookware from the cabinets below.

In many kitchens, the cook will stoop down, open a cabinet door, reach in and roll out the tray within to select a piece of cookware. Then they have to roll the tray shut and close the door. Not a big deal, yet multiply that many times over the course of cooking meals and it gets a bit annoying doing the multi-step.

My solution in many of the kitchens I've designed and built, is to specify a base cabinet or two as all drawers. Usually they are at 32"- 36" wide and have one shallow top drawer and two tall drawers below as shown in the picture to the left. This set-up allows for stacked storage of pots and pans and in one motion allows you to open, view and retrieve your cookware. Plus, having an entire base cabinet all drawers will break up the rows of marching doors.

Be sure to specify heavy duty full extension hardware on these drawers as the pots and pans can add up in weight.

I also like doing this as it allows for a really wide top drawer to store cutlery and cooking tools all in one place and still keep them neat and organized.

There are a number of storage options for cookware such as pot racks and corner cabinets but just having nice big drawers appeals to my practical nature. Out of sight, out of mind, yet easy to see and use!