Could you do toe-kick drawers?

How about a door cabinet with slots or a deep drawer with slots (for vertical storage of flat items rather than horizontal)?

We've been trying different configurations with the drawers in our laundry room (drawer configuration is easy to change with Ikea cabinets) and the small drawers on bottom does look out of balance to me. When planning our kitchen cabinets I drew the possibilities out on graph paper as precisely as I could to get an idea about how they would look.

I think if I were going to do that, I'd still only have a stack of 3 drawers. An 8" drawer really isn't very deep....maybe not deep enough for pots and pans.

And just curious....why different style drawer fronts? If you are going with all drawers, I'd make all the fronts the same with rails and panels. It will look more consistant.

I totally get what you're trying to do but I'm not sure if you can pull it off. I've never seen small drawers on the bottom but most design elements put small at the top, big on the bottom. Suppose you did two deep drawers, but did a drawer inside the bottom drawer. I don't know if I'm making myself understood, but Loves2cook4six did it and they are brilliant. I hope she doesn't mind if I give you the link to a picture of one of her cabinets. Her whole kitchen is in the FKB.

Here is a link that might be useful:

Love the granite in the kitchen pics...........what is it?

I think it would look strange to have short drawers on the bottom; it just looks more stable to have short at the top, deep at the bottom.

We store trays, rack, & pans in after-market vertical racks above our steam oven. Over our Advantium, we store big casserole dishes & platters at the bottom of the cabinet, with a shelf set just above them for vertical storage of sheet pans, wire cooling racks, trays, etc. I'm 5'2" & can pull out everything without a step stool. We're also doing the low shelf trick in the cabinet over the refrigerator for roasting pans, but I do need a stool for things on the next shelf up (big stock pots). I put cutting boards in a rack & store it under my prep sink. We have two pullouts flanking our range for vertical storage of broiler pans & skillets. We also utilize a narrow pullout for storing extra oven racks. These are just a few ideas to deal with shallow items without using drawer space.

Thanks for the ideas -- I hadn't thought of the "drawer in the drawer concept, and gizmonike, those vertical divides for skillets are fabulous. We're putting off the kitchen for a year due to declining health of my MIL (enough stress without ripping out the kitchen) -- I have a feeling my cabinet maker will have to change my plans a bit with all these ideas I've gotten from the site! Thanks!

We have the vertical dividers going in the sideways direction (as pictured) in one pullout, and the front to back direction in the other, which accomodates broiler trays & very large skillets.

How about using the kickspace as a drawer?

I'll have to see if I can find a picture of that. All I can think of is dust bunnies and a dried carrot peel when I think of that . . . at least in my kitchen, maybe not anyone else's, of course

I actually think it could be very convenient the way you describe it, though be careful about your measurements--are you talking inner or outer measurements? Have you measured your stuff? Sorted it out to see if it really would work the way you think?

Visually, it would probably look pretty weird the way you say, however. Rather than doing slab on top and matching fronts of descending sizes, I'd do something to reinforce the difference. That is, make the drawers that look "normal", the top three, in your rails and stiles, and the bottom, shallower drawers in something like a painted slab. Or if that's too radical for you, maybe do the bottom out of beadboard or something. If you do that, the less used drawers become something of a frame for the rest of the kitchen, especially if you can find some good vertical areas to repeat the finish, rather than just looking top heavy or odd.

I have to agree that visually, it seems to make more sense to have the deeper drawers on the bottom. Also, be sure and measure what you want in there -- one of my bottom drawers is 11" deep on the INTERIOR and holds our four tallest pots.....be sure that your cabinet maker knows the depth that you need INSIDE your drawer. An 8" drawer may only have 7" interior space. At least that was the case with my cabinets -- since it sounds like you are doing custom, your cabinet maker can do whatever you need. Most of my drawers are not "standard" as my cabinetmaker used to love to remind me, but.....they do work for us and I am happy that I spent so much time measuring and thinking about what would get stored where.

Also, while I think ccombs kitchen is lovely, I have to disagree about needing rails on all drawers. I have seen kitchens where deeper drawers have rails and shallow ones are slab. I actually like the look of this - think it creates some interest and can emphasize the custom aspect of your kitchen when done thoughtfully and carefully. Ultimately, it is your kitchen and you should do what you love!