Hi, KelliC,

I updated my kitchen last year, and added cabinets that were ceiling height. We chose that thinking that we would get extra storage space, but the cabinets still only came with two additional adjustable shelves, just like the old ones. (Certainly more height to stack, but was thinking we would have more shelving.) I have seen other shelves added on top of the standard size installed shelves--with sliding doors or louvered doors to add extra capacity.

Do they need to be 40" exactly? There are manufacturers like Ikea that make 39" cabinets and there are many more that make 42" cabinets, but 40 is kind of an odd size, so you may need to go custom for that.

Kellic, Look at Bellmont cabinets. They have frameless cabinets that as standard can go to 42" inch cabinets but they can be customized to any size.

We have cabinets that go to 48" in height.

Good luck.

This post was edited by akshars_mom on Sun, Mar 16, 14 at 23:27

Do you need 40" total, or are you trying to stack additional cabinets on top of what you already have?

Is that a broom closet left of your fridge? If so, can you put your pantry in there instead?

I didn't know Ikea went to 39"! I'll have to look into that. Thank you!

I was looking at Bellmont, however they don't have any dealers in Indiana, where I'm from :( I contacted them via email so hopefully they can get back to me about those.

Check out Barker Cabinets. They are a RTA completely custom cabinet, completely American made cabinet company out of Oregon. They make absolutely beautiful frameless cabinets and you can have whatever dimensions you want in 1/4 inch increments.

In the front left of your photo where a wastebasket and a white hamper are, would there be room to place a vertical cabinet there?

Also, on the front right, there appears to be a freezer occupying wall space. Could that be moved elsewhere (such as a nearby garage) to allow space for a vertical cabinet?

[I have found that ceiling-height cabinets are of limited use for me because of access and weight problems, except for lightweight things such as paper towels, jello moulds, etc. Large baskets are in some ways safer and more useful because they can just be lifted down.]

Are you completely redoing the kitchen? I know you mentioned budget concerns, but if you are completely redoing the kitchen, you may want to post a layout here so that we can review it and help out - we might possibly see some ways to help you more with storage issues.

We have taller uppers, and they have been great. Make sure that you get extra shelves in them. We have 3 shelves in ours (so 4 landing spaces), and in the one, I might have possibly used even one additional shelf. Measure out your stuff - that will help you in determining the placement and number of shelves you'll want. For most things, you don't need much "overhead air space" - for instance, with my glasses, my tallest glasses are sitting on the cabinet bottom/shelf and there is only about a 1" to 1 1/2" clearance between it and the next shelf up. There's no issue at all getting the glasses in and out, and I'm not wasting extra space. My cups are on the next shelf up, and that too only has enough space to fit the cups.

This is probably obvious, but remember that depending on your height, the top shelves will be more challenging to access - so you'll put your lesser used things up there.

The freezer was in the garage previously and was killed by the heat out there. I don't recommend that anyone put a freezer in the garage for this reason. I got a replacement a few months ago but will be selling it soon as I'm getting a new stainless fridge in 2 days with a larger freezer than my current fridge.

My plan overall is to replace the cabinets/counters. Possibly the flooring as well, although it's going to be expensive to pull up ceramic tile. I have a large black pantry in the room right now (seen next to the freezer) and I want to get rid of this. If I can put a large pantry cabinet in, along with taller cabinets, then I think that will help with my space issue.

I've posted my layout on here before and got a lot of great advice. However most suggested moving appliances, gas lines, water lines, etc. I live in a duplex and the long wall of my kitchen is where the other house butts up to. Because of this moving the plumbing around wouldn't work well. I also recently bought a dinette table that I'm hoping will be going into the dinette area once I can get rid of the pantry and freezer.

What's between the sink and range? Can you access that corner? If you can put in a blind corner cabinet there, it would help a lot. Maybe you could even do a smaller sink base, and squeeze in a super susan, if you didn't mind your sink not lining up with the opening. Looks like you have quite a few inches of filler to the left.

Without making significant changes, I'd put some corner access, then DW, then range, with 30" drawers on the right side. I know it's far from ideal to prep over the DW, but in your case, especially if you're alone, it might not be too bad It's what you're doing already.

Increasing the height of your uppers will help a lot - I did it last summer. But dakotawoman makes a great point - extra height isn't much good unless you have extra shelves. I ordered extra shelves for most of my 42" uppers, and the storage is fantastic.

InnerMost, found at Home Depot, is a frameless line that makes 42" upppers. This is one of our uppers. Our ceilings are 8'.

I do have a blind cabinet in there already :( I was looking into a super susan actually. My parents have one in their house and I miss having one. I wasn't sure if it would be a "bad" thing for my sink to not line up with the window. But due to it being centered now, there is about 12" of dead total on either side of the sink base. I prep over the dishwasher now so it's no huge deal. It only sucks when it's running and there's steam coming out, but with just me I only need to run it maybe once per week.

Right now the top of the window cut-out is level with the top of the cabinets. I was measuring and realized that my cabinets are only 17" above counters, so if those are raised to 18" with new cabinets, would it be odd to add a shelf or some small display cabinets above this cut-out? It wouldn't be for storage but displaying a few things.

I don't know about other manufacturers but with Barker we just ordered extra shelves for the uppers to make better use of the extra space. I'm guessing other manufacturers could supply extra shelves as well??

That 40" x 58" closet left of the fridge seems plenty large for a pantry. What's in there now? You could put adjustable shelves to the ceiling and may not need to increase your cabinet space. You can hang your broom and step on the back wall. Or, line all 3 walls with shelves and find somewhere else for the brooms/step.

This post was edited by canuckplayer on Tue, Mar 18, 14 at 23:35

40" x 58" is the dimensions of the walls... where the fridge is. The only thing to the left of the fridge is the entry hallway into my home.

Brookhaven and Woodmode have frameless cabinets standard in 42" and able to be made any height. You can also mix the lines. I have Brookhaven with a Woodmode pullout pantry tower (84' tall) because it was a better size and configuration for us.

Is there room in your entry hallway to straighten out the wall with the fridge? That would give you more room, as would extending the side wall and moving the doorway. Looks like you have more space for eating or what may be more like dead space in the middle. Making better use of that would help you gain space for the kitchen.

This post was edited by lascatx on Wed, Mar 19, 14 at 8:29

Thanks Lascatx, I'll take a look into those!

I love my house, but there are some weird architectural quirks that drive me crazy. Like the angled walls.

The view from my front door

View looking at front door
{{!gwi}}

Slightly moved, looking in the kitchen

The baby gate is to keep my dogs away from the kitchen and front door. The angled wall in my kitchen is there to mirror the triangle that juts out from the utility room. The triangle includes my water heater. This made it a HUGE pain to move in because the movers had to angle all my furniture around that curve.

Long story short, I can't straighten the wall haha. There is a "dinette" area in the kitchen. To me, that makes no sense. I have a dining area, complete with chandelier, on the other side of that wall cut-out. It's only a 2 bed, 2 bath so it's not like I need a lot of room for my "family" to eat.

A banquette might be nice under the windows in the dinette area, and provide storage underneath.

Maybe a 12" deep counter along the wall between the hall doorway and the dinette, with glass uppers for display. It looks like you could do this on both sides, even.

As far as the sink,you could get an offset one that would allow you to center the faucet in the openeing, while the sink itself would not need to be, like these: