Yeah, I hate those half-shelves! What a waste of space! Not sure how you tell if you can remove the centre stile and not compromise the integrity of the cabinet. A good quality full-extension slide would increase the useablity of your cupboards.

Hopefully someone with better knowledge of structure can tell you about the possibility of removing that centre stile.

Oh, I'm sure that the central stile can be removed structurally. But if those are partial overlay cabinets, and I'd bet they are from the little bit of the rest of them I can see, then you will have a giant gap there between the doors.

Adding Rev-a-Shelf or Shelves that Slide pull outs can be done by even the unhandiest rather than paying someone hundreds to do something so easy. Save that labor money towards a more expensive kitchen renovation that addresses all of the rest of the issues that the kitchen has. If those sagging shelves and lower quality hinges are an indication of the overall quality and condition of the cabinets, they may not have that many years left.

Yes - the shelf is sagging - but it's primarily because I put very heavy cookware on them (le crueset which are cast iron)

As far as the hinges, what kind do you recommend?

The kitchen cabinets are by Omega.

This post was edited by Janice742 on Sun, Feb 17, 13 at 16:26

I also noticed the top drawers do not appear to be lined up...it looks like the right one is lower than the left - but it could be that the right one is open and the left is not.

If the drawers are both open or closed and the drawer fronts are not lined up properly, you may be able to fix that yourself...see if the drawer front is attached to the drawer box in such a way that you can adjust the vertical alignment by moving the drawer front up/down on each side independent of the drawer box.

As to your question...with half-shelves and no wall in the middle (where the center stile is), I think you will have to replace the half-shelf with a full-depth shelf and then get bottom-mount glides and roll out tray shelves (ROTS) (that's what most in the industry call "pullout shelves", at least in my experience).

You might be able to place a thinner sheet of plywood on top of the existing half-shelf, attach it to the sides and center stile, and then mount the glide hardware on top of the plywood....but I'm not a cabinetmaker - hopefully someone who is will chime in! (I don't know if a thin piece of plywood would be strong enough even with the half-shelf supporting the back half nor do I know if a thin piece of plywood would be strong enough to attach the front of the glide to.)

For the bottom, you can mount bottom-mount glides to the bottom of the cabinet. If there's a lip created by the cabinet frame, you may need to "fill" it in with, again, a thin piece of plywood to make the bottom flush w/the frame.

Again, I'm not a cabinetmaker...anyone who is?

I do agree w/HollySprings, though, don't spend a lot of money hiring someone to do it. If you can't do it yourself (or have a friend or family member who can help you for free - and maybe teach some carpentry basics while they do it), then I suggest you save your money for either a full-remodel in a few years or for other things that may need work in the house.

Just a note...in my experience, cabinets that have just a half-shelf in the base cabinets are usually builder-grade cabinets and are not generally of the best quality. I'm not saying they're lousy cabinets, but I do think you may be wasting your money to try to make them something they're not. As a DIY (Do-It-Yourself) project, I think it's worth it, but not as something that must be hired out.

I find it interesting that you have Omega cabinets - they must not be Dynasty/Embassy or Omega Custom since the standard for all such cabinets have ROTS. I didn't know Omega had a builder-grade line - what's the full name of the cabinets? Their semi-custom line is Omega Dynasty or Omega Embassy (same as Dynasty, just different name); their custom line is Omega Custom.

Do you have the Omega hinge covers (they say "Omega") and come with all Omega cabinets that I know about.

Here is a link that might be useful: Omega Cabinets

Yes -- they are Omega. The Galloway door style. Not sure what line they are from.

And yes - that one drawer was loose. I just needed to tighten up the screw. Thanks for pointing that out.

Our home was built in 2006 - we are the first owners. With that, I have a hard time wrapping my head around a full kitchen remodel. Really???

At this point, we are just looking to make some improvements that will make the kitchen function better. If we can have roll-out shelves installed in three double cabinets for around $1000 -- that's worth it to us, and then some.

Here is a national company (well, you know, one with many local franchises) that specializes in ROTS.

Here is a link that might be useful: Shelf Genie

Getting 3 double cabinets with roll outs for around $1000.00
That would be 3 center stiles cut so consider a handyman to do that for about $60.00 each maximum, that would be $180.00 leaving $720.00 for 6 shelves or approx $120.00 per shelf.
Here is a link showing your handyman how to remove the center stile
http://www.slideoutshelvesllc.com/blog/2011/07/removing-cabinet-center-stile-for-wide-pull-out-cabinet-shelves/

Your cabinets look like b36 so with the center stile removed and attached to the door your opening would be around 33" wide. looking at Slide Out Shelves LLC web site this size of roll out would cost approx $50.00 each or $300.00 for all six shelves. Shipping on these large shelves will be kinda expensive because of the size of boxes so figure another 100-125 for shipping
So the total for the shelves with shipping would cost you approx $425.00 plus the $180.00 to have someone cut the stile out would put the job at 605.00 plus installing the shelves approx another 120.00 would be a total of $720.00 and you can save the install cost by doing it yourself. My sister put hers in so they are not hard and the people at Slide Out Shelves LLC told her what she would need

Here is a link that might be useful: Find pull out shelves here

Yes, it's possible. My cabinets are the same. I had the 1/2 upper shelf too but contacted the cabinet co who installed our cabinets & had them install pullouts on all my lower cabinets. Attached is a picture of how they installed the upper pullouts. I'll put some other images up for you to see other angles.

Here's another image. If you have any ?'s or would like to see something better feel free to ask. The image above is the center bar that the upper pull outs attach too. The drawer is pulled out fully.

Thanks for the replies.
kgolby - can you re-post your photos? They are upside down.

Only one of my cabinets has the center stile. The other two do not. So I would keep the center stile in the one cabinet to avoid cutting it.

So all I have to consider is purchase and install.

I don't think I can find someone to install for under $200 - we are in the Chicago area, and labor is quite expensive. I'll probably just try to find a handy man with good references.

I had pull outs installed probably around 10 yrs ago - 8 pull outs total. Don't recall what I paid for them but I know it was not $200. Probably more like $700 or $800 installed.

I'm remodeling my kitchen later this month & our new cabinet pull outs cost $80 a piece.

I have to ask what to me is the obvious, elephant in the living room question:

If you're going to pay for someone to put in roll-outs, why not go all the way and just put in drawers?

All the value of drawers has been discussed a gudzillion times, so I won't beat a dead horse. I've retrofitted several cabinets with drawers and it is just plain easy.
Removing the center stile is eeeeeeasy. You probably need a square tipped drill bit, given the age of your hinges. Tapping it out then is a no brainer. A little sanding on the top area and in go the drawers.

and Hollysprings has a point. Those are partial/standard overlay and you will have a nice big gap between the doors. If you have to buy new doors, why not buy new drawer fronts?

If you don't want to buy new doors, you're going to end up with skinny, useless roll-outs that probably won't hold your nice big pots.

The roll-outs do waste some cabinet space, so accommodating the stile with two ROTS will eat up even more. You could convert the cabinet with the stile into drawers as suggested and do the other two as roll-outs. Makes sense to me if you'll need to buy new doors anyway.

Here's some photos of adding pull out shelves to cabinets after removing the center stiles. To cover the gap between the doors, they attached the stile to one of the doors. That way you don't need to replace the doors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Removing center stile to add pullout shelves

My old kitchen had stiles cut with rots added as shown in juliet's link, they looked and worked just fine. A couple of things to keep in mind with rots - weight limits, all of your heavy pots should not go in one drawer, and the need for the opening doors to extend far enough so that the trays have enough clearance. The one picture that you posted looks like clearance should not be an issue. .

This post was edited by athomeinva on Mon, Feb 18, 13 at 11:46

Cefreeman - Yes, drawers would be wonderful. I have two deep drawers in the space under my cooktop, so I know what you mean as far as how useful they are.

Note - the other two cabinets I'm working with do not have stiles. They are located in my island - so I can easily do the long roll outs in each.

As far as the other cabinet with the stile - If I go the drawer route - which is a great suggestion - will the stain look different? I'd hate to do that and have it look like it was added after the fact.

The best thing might be just to deal with the stile - have two ROTS in that cabinet, and just store appropriate sized items in there. (mixing bowls, serving pieces, that sort of thing.

Gosh, looking at the contents of my cabinets in these pics makes me want to get this done ASAP.

If an Omega cabinet shelf sagged, then I'd definately have to say it was overloaded! Be sure to not do that to the ROTS. They can't handle as much weight as a shelf. You may want to explore other locations for your cast iron.

Another source for rollouts that I saw just yesterday is the Lynk brand, available at Target.com. I know nothing about the quality of this brand, but saw that they do have metal basket trays in single and also 2 tier systems that could take the place of your upper half shelf.

I'd contact the manufacturer or if you can, the vendor and ask about replacement doors or drawer fronts. They're the most likely to be able to match the stain.