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nikkidan_gw

Pull out shelves vs. 3 drawer set?

nikkidan
12 years ago

Which would you prefer, a 24" cabinet with 2 roll out shelves (I already have one, but have another one in the plan). Or would you prefer another 3 drawer stack in place of the pull out shelves?

I have one 24" cab with roll out shelves, 1 with rev-a-shelf pot/pan/lid storage, 2 6" pull out spice racks, and 3-3 drawer sets. I have one spot left and trying to decide if it should be roll out shelves or another 3 drawer set.

Opinions? Which is more useful? I've never had roll outs before, and my previous kitchen only had one drawer stack, the rest was cabinets, so I'm having a hard time deciding. Thanks!

Comments (17)

  • brianadarnell
    12 years ago

    Drawers!!!! I don't have a single roll out shelf. No regrets. I love keeping anything in my lower drawers- plates, china,etc.

  • beekeeperswife
    12 years ago

    drawers.

    I have 2 rollouts in my new plan. One for the Kitchenaid mixer, and one for the Keurig and Margaritaville Machine.

    Drawers are one step, rather than open the door, all the way, then pull out the rollout.

  • Sidney4
    12 years ago

    Same here.......drawers. I have both and if I had it to do over they would all be drawers.I didn't find this forum soon enough ........

  • catbuilder
    12 years ago

    Drawers. But I'd do a stack of 4 or 5 drawers. There's always lots of flat things that need storing that can get lost in deeper drawers. Placemats, towels, extra flatware, broiler pan, small candles, cake decorating supplies, plastic wraps and foil, napkins, miscellaneous junk, small tools, etc.

  • runninginplace
    12 years ago

    Drawers. No question and hands down. I put all lower drawers in my kitchen, at the (overwhelming) suggestion of this board and it was one of the best design decisions I made. My drawers hold everything including trays and heavy pots, and now everything is sooooo easy to reach.

  • c9pilot
    12 years ago

    I say it depends on what's going in there.
    I have a two-door cab with two rollout shelves for pots and pans. It's a pain to open both doors, then pull out the shelves, BUT I would not be able to fit nearly the amount in there if they were drawers. It's not hard if I spend 5 seconds thinking about all the pots or pans that I'm going to need and pull them all out at once and put on the range.
    If these were drawers, I figure I'd only be able to fit about 2/3 of what I have in there because of all the handles that hang over the sides.

  • lolauren
    12 years ago

    Drawers!

  • a2gemini
    12 years ago

    I went with mostly drawers - Makes sense to not have to do 2 functions to reach something.
    For the tall pots - I can either put them in my tall drawer under the oven, corner cabinet, or my pantry.
    Construction about 1 month away
    Hope I made the right choice!

  • remodelfla
    12 years ago

    definitely drawers

  • joaniepoanie
    12 years ago

    Drawers! The only door cabinet I'm getting on the bottom (besides sink base) is 12" wide for cookie sheets, cutting boards....that was the only width I could put in the space and a stack of 12" wide drawers would have been pretty useless so it worked out well. Can't wait for my all my drawers...more practical! In fact, wish I had known to ask about having sink base a big drawer instead...saw it on GW aftervour cabinet order and thought it was fabulous!

  • writersblock (9b/10a)
    12 years ago

    drawers, by a mile

  • Lori Ryan
    12 years ago

    Drawers!!! A friend just asked me this week what I would have done differently after living with my kitchen Reno for 5months and I told her I would have put in more drawers and less pull out shelves. I have big,deep drawers for my pots and I love them. Lots of space and super easy to get to my pots and pans. The roll out shelves waste space and you need to open the doors first and sometimes they get in the way. Drawers are the way to go.

  • johnnyl53
    12 years ago

    Everybody wants drawers because supposedly they are more efficient. Of course if you are the only one that uses your kitchen and you are disciplined enough to ALWAYS put everything back in the exact same place everytime they may just be that. Otherwise you are stuck opening and closing drawers until you find what you want. Then you have the people who just toss things back in the drawer so you have to re-arrange everything to fit all the items back in the drawer. Theoretically you would think drawers should be more efficient but in practice I doubt if they actually are. Take a look at some of the kitchen pics posted that have stacks and stacks of drawers. Again, if you are the only one who uses your kitchen you just may remember where everything is but in real life, you are going to have to put up with your kid or spouse opening up and closing a bunch drawers to find what they want and not putting anything back in the exact place YOU would store it. Just take the claims of more efficiency with a grain of salt.

  • lolauren
    12 years ago

    "Theoretically you would think drawers should be more efficient but in practice I doubt if they actually are. "

    It sounds like you haven't lived with all/mostly drawers whereas many of us voting "drawers" have.

    From someone living with lots of stacks, there is absolutely no validity to things being hard to find (for us.) This is true for my husband as well. We both know which drawer has the pots, lids, pans, towels, plastic wrap, etc. Seriously.. I think it took us about three days to figure out where things were. Overall, we have been more than thrilled with the drawers in our kitchen. Things are more organized and easier to access.

  • pps7
    12 years ago

    I think it depends on what you will put there and if you another spot in the kitchen to store taller items. The advantage with roll out drawers is that they are adjustable- so if you want to store an ice cream maker, or cereal boxes, or tall vases.

    I have about 90% drawers but do have a few pullouts.

  • chibimimi
    12 years ago

    Drawers.

    We have two cabinets with roll-out shelves. We thought they would be more flexible than drawers, because they are adjustable. We have never once adjusted them. But we have had to retrieve lots of things that fell off the backs or sides of them. The backs and sides are only a few inches tall, where the backs and sides of drawers are full-height.

    Drawers definitely hold more without losing them!

  • dianalo
    12 years ago

    Drawers all the way! Get as wide as you can, so you won't have as many stacks. I have 6 drawer stacks but no more than 3 in a row. It is easy finding things as they are put away in zones. There are the pots/pans drawers, the bowls/fry pans drawer, the daily dishes drawer, the cups/glasses drawer, round tupperware drawer, square/rectangle tupperware drawer, baking drawers (2), junk drawer, keys & family notebook drawer & misc dh stuff, stamps, pens/pencils/crayon and checkbook drawer, my drawer for work stuff and pocketbook, foils and oven mitt drawer, silverware one, several utensil ones (serving stuff one, cooking stuff one, measuring stuff, cutting boards one, food processor stuff one, etc....), one for lunch bags and water bottles, cookie sheets and one that has sone light bulbs and medicine which will move out once we get the shelves in our master medicine cab. Not sure what will go in there....
    Once you set it up logically, it is easy to remember. Post it notes for the first few days help.
    I had rollouts in the last kitchen before we moved here and thought they were great. We moved here into a kitchen with no drawer stacks and only had shallow top drawers. Our new kitchen is so much better than even the pullout setup. As you know better, you do better. Thanks to GW, I went with all drawers other than the sink base. If we did not have water filters in the sink cab, we'd have done drawers there too.