Help me decide - counter space or cabinet?

10 years ago

My DH and I can't decide which is the best way to go.
Here's the situation:
We are putting in a FD built-in fridge. It will be located near a wall/pocket door. The door is usually open, but we like to have it for those times we need to close it due to noise or odor. In order to fully open the door, we need ~8" of clearance space due to the protrusion of the door handles when the door is opened. With the pocket door opened, the distance from the wall to the fridge must be 4" (the rest of the door and handle has clearance through the doorway). We have a small galley kitchen (~10" wide by 12" long).

Here's the dilema:
1. KD recommends putting in a 10" pullout on the left side of the fridge next to the wall. This would allow for cokkie sheet storage on top, with the pullout on bottom. Plenty of clearance for the door.

2. Other option is to have a 4" filler next to the wall and have 6" more of counter space on the right side of the fridge, and a under-counter pull-out. This pullout could be 9" wide by turning our 33" sink base cabinet into a 30" cabinet (the minimum needed for our Franke Orca sink).

So what would you do and why?

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Comments (6)

suzanne_sl
10 years ago
In our pre-reno kitchen, we had a counter of about that size in just that position. The uppers and lowers were narrow, but functional. The counter surface just tended to collect "stuff": mail, meds, keys, small objects that needed to go somewhere else, and lots of dust. As counter space it was pretty worthless. We currently have the same space with a 12" wide full height cabinet. There are 2 deep drawers on the bottom and a cabinet on the top which we use as a broom closet. As a broom closet it's OK, but not great. If I were choosing for your current situation, I think I'd go with #1.
michele0901
Original Author
10 years ago
suzannesl: Thanks for the reply. Let me clarify - in either case, there would be no counter on the left side of the fridge. There would either be a 4" trim piece, or a 10" cabinet - pull-ou on bottom, door on top. On the right side of the fridge, there will either be 46" of counter space or 52" of counter space between the fridge and the sink.
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palimpsest
10 years ago
In your case I would put the pullout to the left of the fridge, unless the elbow room at the sink will be non-existent on that side.
lyfia
10 years ago
To me it would really depend on how much overall counterspace you have in the kitchen.
michele0901
Original Author
10 years ago
Here's the kitchen layout.
Tricia21
10 years ago
I have almost exact same layout. On the fridge side, it's the same as yours minus the 24" drawer stack. I have a 4" filler next to the fridge. If I had more space like you, I would definitely do the 10" pullout. On the oven side, our layouts are almost identical but I have an extra set of drawers. I think you'll really utilize the extra pullout.