My pots and pans pull-outs are 23 1/2 wide x 21 3/4 deep. The pull-outs themselves are 4 inches high. The size is about right for pots and pans except I'd prefer deeper drawers instead of shallow pull-outs. Drawers are a much better idea than pull-outs. I HATE my metal pull-outs. They were not what I wanted. I had expected wooden drawers. Mine are Brookhaven and Wood-Mode "B" Metal drawers made by Blum. They have a lip under which the skillets get jammed. This requires me to move everything to get one thing out. PITA!

carecooks - best of wishes with your project.

In case anyone is interested, here is a pic of the Wood-Mode metal drawer showing the way that skillets and pots get wedged under the inner lip on the front of the pull-out.

{{!gwi}}

I like 30 to 36" drawers for pots and pans and lids. Generally speaking - without knowing specifics for your cabinet line, p&p drawers usually have a 7-8 inch drawer on top and two 10-12 inch deep drawers underneath. Lines vary a lot! For example, Ikea uses 6-12-12 (except those darn metrics make mock with measurement).

You are doing the right thing to measure your pots and pans! My big pot and salad spinner are very close to the available clearance, so if I hadn't measured I might have been in trouble.

3 drawers between oven and refrigerator: bottom holds blender, salad spinner, random ladels; middle is bread drawer; top I call the "crazy drawer" (spatulas, whisks, apple slicer, etc. If I were to do it again I'd have a shallower bread drawer and a deeper 'crazy drawer'.

Bottom and bread drawers: Sides are 8 1/2"; clearance is is 10".
{{!gwi}} {{!gwi}}

2 drawers in the island for skillets and pots/pans:
Sides are 6 1/2"; clearance is 8":
{{!gwi}}

I have a big deep drawer for Tupperware (I probably have more than I need but never the right size when I need it):
Sides are 11 1/2" clearance is 13 1/2" (Yeah it's pretty unorganized!):
{{!gwi}}

That weird little cabinet next to the MW is sized that way due to the spacing for the MW. However, it's the perfect size for our phone directories (school, church, neighborhood), and the phone is near there so it turned out to be handy.

chicagoans...how wide is that small cabinet next to the MW drawer? It looks very handy!

" My big pot and salad spinner are very close to the available clearance, so if I hadn't measured I might have been in trouble. "

how close to the clearance height is safe to go? my big pot is 5" high (4 qt pot). would a drawer 8" high be safe enough?

"Sides are 11 1/2" clearance is 13 1/2" (Yeah it's pretty unorganized!): "

do you now think it'd be better to have 2 shorter drawers to store the plasticware in or would you redo using the deep drawer?
i've been thinking that it'd be better not to stack things in the drawer. of course, one would need to measure the hght of their plastic bowls etc and be sure to have one high enough for the big ones.
most of mine are not that big anymore since it's just me now. my bigger ones tend to be rectangles and still aren't that deep, just longer and wider.

buehl: the opening is only 4" wide (door is wider of course) and it's only 12" deep. There is some electrical thing back there for the MW, so it had to be shallow. Yes, it has turned out to be handy! (For being so small.)

desertsteph: a couple of my things are just a fraction of an inch below the clearance. (That's why in the one drawer the lid on the pot is upside down. If it were right side up the handle would hit.) So I think it's really important to find out from the cabinetmaker or source what the clearance is... since the drawer measurements aren't necessarily what your interior space will be. Mine were custom built and my counters are 39" high, so they're non-standard. But the cabinet source should be able to provide specs with exact measurements for the interior.

re: the Tupperware drawer, I actually like having one big drawer rather than two. I have more flexibility for fitting in stacks of long/flat containers and narrow/tall ones, when it's all one space. I think I just need to straighten it out a bit, and get rid of containers that have no lids, etc.

Chicagoans,

Thanks for the pics! And the measurements! And the cute ruler! That was really helpful. One off-topic question. How do you like your bread drawer? I didn't know if it was worth getting that acrylic top. What do you think? It will be the drawer on top of my tupperware drawer. I'll only have 18-21" width to work with so I'm concerned about having enough room for both of those. I use a lot of bread.

Questions for anyone,

4 drawer measurements concern me at the moment...

1. Pot Lids - I have a number of pot lids that I use interchangeably on different pans. They range from 8" to 14". The largest lid has a depth of about 2". Does anyone have a drawer just for lids and what size would you recommend?

2. Frying pans and woks. I'll have two drawers underneath my cooktop on an island. I plan on using those two drawers for my frying pans, saute pans and woks. Even though they are not necessarily tall by themselves, when stacked the handles go higher than the pans. I think that I can use a 12" depth for both but I'd love to hear of any solutions.

3. Not pots and pans, but small appliances. I do want to have one drawer for my KA food processor, spice grinder, and KA blender. The tallest piece is about 11". Comments?

4. I'm planning on have a Miele double oven if the budget allows. (Boy, they just raised their rates again today...sheesh!) What size drawers do you put under your double ovens? I was hoping to store my big Le Creuset pots underneath but I'd love to know what other folks do.

Here's a thread where measurements of several types of drawers were given...

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: More on Interior Drawer Dimensions

Hi carecooks: I'm kind of like my bread drawer. We switched from a standard depth fridge to a counter depth one with the reno, so I thought I'd keep our bread in the drawer rather than the fridge because of the lost fridge space. However we ended up keeping regular sandwich bread and tortillas in the fridge anyway to avoid mold. (Some of the tortillas seem to get moldy really fast, like a few days, if they're at room temp.)

So we use the bread drawer for oatmeal, crackers, MW popcorn, stuff like that. Now I'm thinking I should use it for pasta too, because that gets kind of buried in my pantry. I like having the acrylic top -- I don't know if it really keeps things fresher, but it makes me feel like it will!

And regarding #3 above: weigh the food processor first and ask the cabinet maker/supplier about keeping it in a drawer. I thought I would keep my KA mixer in a drawer and our cabinet maker said a pantry shelf (built in, not a roll out) would be better because of the weight. I do keep my blender in a drawer, with the glass part separated from the base due to height. (It's in the drawer in my first picture above.)

Regarding #2: set them up on the counter(or better yet in a box) how you would imagine them in a drawer, giving yourself the confines of the planned width and depth of the drawer, then measure how high they go. My skillet handle fits in between pots on an angle because it's so long, so I had to work around it to make things fit. Someone posted a picture of how they hung their pots in a cabinet... maybe the "hidden gems" thread? It was clever and nicely organized.

Chicagoans,

Very helpful. Right now I keep almost all of my bread and tortillas in a big tupperware-like container on the counter. With kitchen redesign, there won't be any room for it on the counter and it looks pretty tacky. Actually, I'm amazed at how long the tortillas (flour and corn) keep in tupperware container without getting moldy. Maybe it's the container or the brands I buy although I think that it's the container.

Great ideas about the boxes for the pans and the wok and for weighing the food processor. I would really like to keep the food processor in a drawer because it will be right near the workspace and because I'm trying to declutter my countertop. My pantry will be too far away. My KA mixer will go into its own cabinet on the island.

An aside...I'm making a leap that you're from Chicago. After many, many years of wanting to, I finally got to go to Chicago last October. What a fantastic city! I fell in love with the people, the architecture, the museums and the great food. I'm just sayin'.

I have my cuisinart and all of the parts together in a plastic dishpan in a cupboard on a shelf. I just pull the dishpan out. I can't imagine it being any easier -other than having it in an appliance garage.