In our kitchen, I had 3.5" fill needed in a corner so I had the cab guy steal another 1" off the cab next to the fill and make a 4.5" open area for cutting boards. If your kitchen was more informal this might be an idea for next to the sink but I can also see wanting symmetry there, too.

I thought about the telescoping towel rack. But it would have to be for particularly dry towels, right? You wouldn't want to push wet towels back in amongst cabinet sides, I'd think.

I can't think of anything narrow enough to put into spice-jar sized containers, so that would seem to rule out the spice rack.

And when I think about the stainless/pegboard thing, anything I think to put onto that could potentially be wet too.

At this point, if I didn't order the sides of those cabinets finished, I'd need something that would pull out and have the filler strip attached to it, I'd think.

Other ideas?

I put back damp towels (I'm not very risk averse - if they're really wet, they go in the laundry)

Did you do something to finish between the cabinets? I'm envisioning two cabinets that aren't butted up against one another, 3 inches apart, plain unfinished furniture board along both sides. A toe kick board running in front of the gap between the cabinets. Is that what it'd be?

And is the link below something like what you've got?

Here is a link that might be useful: Towel rack

towel bar here -- at the main sink and the prep sink. Damp towels dry easily (no door on the front) and the really wet ones are retired to the laundry -- same as sjhockeyfan.

With no door, did you have the sides of those cabinets finished? What happens at the floor level?

I'm sorry to ask similar questions multiple times, but I'm not getting it.

We had this issue and ordered the peg board but it would not work and had to be returned. (For the life of me I can't remember why.) So as a last minute alternative, our KC put in a row of tiny shelves -- my sister's original suggestion. It was awkward to retrofit but he got it done. And you'd think 3" shelves would be a waste but I now have cubby-holes for my long roll of aluminum foil, which fit nowhere else, my rolling pin, my mandoline and all its blades, and at the bottom I keep an ice bin full of odd utensils I don't often use. (Turkey lifters, anyone?)

I'd love a pic of that.

Here you go. This was before I stuffed it full. Kind of made best of a bad situation. You can see the little braces he had to tack in to hold the shelves. If it had been built originally for shelves, they would have been adjustable.

i would prefer (and actually have) my spices in a rev-a shelf not near the range as heat would damage them. it's near the second oven that will be used less frequently. so it's 30 inches away from range....

I have an odd little cabinet between my DW and drawer MW. (I think it was an oops on the part of the cabinet maker when he installed the MW.)

I keep phone directories in there, from church, school, etc. There's a phone on the counter above the MW so it's a handy spot for directories.

If my cabinet were full height, I would probably have a shelf for keeping user manuals for my kitchen appliances.

The towel bar photo isn't from my kitchen, but in case it helps I thought I'd include an example of an open alcove with a pullout towel bar.

That's the same towel bar I have, only my cabinet has a door (I would have left it open, but my DH didn't like the idea)