Just something to consider about horizontal uppers...

A friend got them with frosted glass fronts--they're beautiful and were perfect for the modern look she was after. The problem is that several of her hinge mechanisms have failed, which allows the cabinet doors to slam down. One hit her in the head, and another just hit the cabinet itself so hard that the glass broke. She's had the broken hinges replaced, but she had one of the new ones fail recently, as well. The second one was a different brand of hinge from the first one that had broken.

I don't know how common this problem is, but she sure has had terrible luck with them. It is, however, something I would very carefully consider before getting horizontal uppers.

I have a couple of horizontal uppers with heavy doors and fancy Blum hinge/closers. Advantage is confidence in the mechanisms and soft close, and you just push up and they stay open. You don't have to "latch" them open. Disadvantage is hefty price tag, and they're big and ugly.

key words for your next web search :

Blum Aventos

There are three kinds of Aventos. The ones you may be thinking of are a single hinge. Instead of stacking three of them on top of each other, consider a couple other options.

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In this forum, someone posted a finished kitchen which used

Blum Aventos HF

HF are the kind that take two wall cabinet fronts and fold them up together. When you see the images on the Blum site, you might feel that this is a better use for you.

I have this hardware also. There are three strengths of spring to choose from They each have a large range of tightening, so if you add extra handles larger than planned for you can keep on tightening the springs. They work very well. They are expensive. I like them. They hold the panels in mid air at any height wherever I stop them. Total control.

I have six panels of frosted glass (on three wall cabinets, two fronts each).

You can attach a ribbon to the back side of the lower panel. Then, when it swings up high and if it goes too high for you, you can reach the ribbon and pull it down. When back down, the ribbon is invisible.

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by the way, there are several other companies that compete against Blum.

Hth

Davidrol & Pllog. I think I've seen these hinges at the store where I first fell in love with horizontal cabinets. They seemed like a dream. Out for the price tag! We could get one "double" and use the bigger hinges. Since we'd only have to have 2 of them, we could fit it in the budge.

Holligator, I obviously never even thought about the doors coming slamming shut and worse yet break - I was just concerned about opening and shutting them. Do you happen to know the brand your friend had.

Though I've never actually been to IKEA, we were planning to purchase out cabinets from them because of the rave reviews on their value. I've heard over and over about how great their hardware is. At the time, I thought to myself, I've never had a problem with hardware before, so no big deal. With cabinets slamming down, I want to find out more.

Does anyone know how well IKEA hardware is for the horizontals.

Honestly, I don't know about the Ikea lift-ups. I know their drawers use Blums, but the Aventos mechanism for ONE door costs over $100, and the Ikea lift-up cabs average less than half that, so I'd be suspicious.

I do have some horizontal uppers. Search "Finished Modern Kitchen" I just measured and lowest ones start at 18" and my 2 higher ones at 32." My lowers are easy to use, but are really heavy since they have glass in them. I only store crystal and wine glasses in them. My higher ones are harder to use due to their height and I'm 5'7". Depending on how often you need to access these, but I would not like them for daily use at this height. I only store serving trays and misc. coffee items in mine. I'm not sure what mechanism my cabinet maker used, but I think you can see in the pictures I posted. You pull up and they lock and I slight tap and they will close (slow motion close is a must on these. I love the look, but functionality is more important and I would not consider using horizontal cabinets for more than the lower row.

I'm getting the strong impression that horizonatal cabinets are very impressive but also function challenged.

These few cabinets, will be the only upper cabinets in the entire kitchen, so they will be used a lot. I don't want to be fussing with makeshift pulls (though I appreciate the idea), costly mechanisms, or lesser quality ones failing). There gets to a point that a person has to forgo looks (no matter how much you want it) over function.

I'm pretty well there, but I know my DH (who does most of the cooking), is not going to be happy. Though he cooks a lot, I can't imagine having to contend with these obstacles every time I want a glass out of the cabinets.

Tanem - awesome kitchen!

Well, there's nothing that says you have to have a lift up door with a horizontal cabinet! Think Mid-Century Modern. You could do double small doors or a single very long door (though the latter would probably have to have some extra hardware to stabilize it against gravity). You could also have a flip down door with ball and grip pressure latches up top, or shades, or sliding panels.