When we remodeled our kitchen about a year ago, I asked that the upper cabs be 15'' deep. Since I prep on the island and seldom on the perimeter under the cabs, and since I am fairly short (5' 2'') the deeper wall cabs cause no inconvenience, and they are GREAT for storage.

I knew at the time that I was creating a monster in the corner though. Here is the way the old corner looked. Pretty, but it was a storage nightmare. Items stored at the back were more than 2 feet behind the items in the front. Impossible to reach without emptying the whole shelf.

I knew I wanted susans there, but the cabinet makers simply were not comfortable modifying them as I wanted. And I knew that, unlike base cabinets, it WAS possible to add susans to wall cabinets after the cabs were installed. So I waited. I had thought I could do this myself, but found that lifting the shelf and susan into place was beyond my strength, so this summer, a young contractor and I tackled the job.

There were three shelves, but I knew that after I modified them, I wanted four. I found a source for 24'' round Rev-a-shelf susans at less than $40 each and ordered 4 of them. I painted the edge so it would match the dark cherry cabs. They looked like this:

I wasn't happy with the small bearing under them, nor with the wasted vertical space. Each susan with its 2'' rim, bearings, mounting plate, and the shelf below it took 3'' of vertical space--so four of them would eat up 12'' in my 40'' cabinet! So we started cutting and replacing. We cut off one inch from the tops of the rim and a slice of the front edge to make a D-shaped instead of a round susan. We added a new, straight edge across the cut. (I was unable to find 24'' D-shaped susans anywhere. I had played with the idea of making the whole thing, but at less than $40 each, this seemed the better way.) Here are the cut off tops and the bearings and original crude turn table which we replaced or eliminated:

And here is a chopped and sectioned susan in position on the new shelf which we made to better use the vertical height provided by the more efficient bearings and the cut-down rim:

I know this is long, but I want to share what I can store on two different shelves in this corner susan. Bear with me.
Here is the front of the bottom shelf.

Storage is planned so that multiple identical items are arranged in front to back rows. Everything is accessible from the front. Here is the same shelf rotated about 45 degrees:

And rotated another 45 degrees or more:

All of the items on this shelf are used almost daily.

And one more shelf, This is the second one.
Front of shelf (I love teapots!)

Rotated about 1/3 of the way:

And rotated again:

Those big nested mixing bowls were space gobblers on any shelf or in any drawer before. I am not sure they would even fit in 12'' deep cabs. They are perfect here. Easy to reach and remove.

I plan to use the two upper shelves for ''dead'' or seasonal storage because I can reach them only with a ladder.

Here is a flash photo of the way the corner looks now. Forgive the ugly shadows the dimpled glass casts under a photo flash.

In summary: If you have limited storage space and every inch counts, consider 15'' deep uppers. If you do 15'' deep uppers, consider susans on the shelves. I strongly recommend retrofitting commercial susans or, better yet, having your cabinet maker custom make them to use every possible inch of vertical and horizontal space.

I like the new easy reach corner upper shelves a lot, but this holds SO much more that I would not change even if I could.

As a final image, I am going to post the bearings we used. I found them on Amazon. The shelves just coast with a slight spin. Brooks, my friend and budding contractor, was astonished at the difference they made:

I have had an immense amount of fun with this project. And playing with organizing the storage has only begun. Next stop is toe kick drawers!!

Thanks for looking. And thank you, GWers, for teaching me that almost anything I can imagine is possible--and then helping me imagine it!

Sandra

I can't wait for your toe-kick tutorial!

What was the secret to getting those shelves into the cabinet? Looks a bit like that ship in a bottle trick.

Great job.

Well done! Looks great and clearly stores a tonne of stuff! Very clever.

1. Brooks (budding contractor and muscular enabler) attached the first susan to the bottom of the cabinet.
2. Next he put the shelves in one by one, laying them on top of the first susan.
3. Then he attached a susan to the top shelf in the stack and raised it temporarily to the very top of the cabinet,
4. The next susan was attached and raised as high as possible under the top one.
5. The last susan was attached and then the shelf was placed in its position above the bottom susan.
6. Next the susan above it (next to the top) was dropped to its position.
7. And finally, the top susan was lowered to its final position.

I could not have done this. The shelves plus susans were HEAVY and the opening meant putting them in at an awkward angle. Brooks was wonderful and patient when we had to adjust a shelf or two.

Not really hard, but not really easy, either.

Yes, you can save a post two ways that I know of:
1. To the right of your name in the post above you will see the word Clippings and the scissors logo. Click on ''clip this post'' and the post will be stored in your GW clippings file.
2. Also, you can highlight the address at the top of the page on your browser window and use your browser to SAVE AS , chose Web Document, and save it in a folder on your hard drive.

Sandra

Weedpuller
We are less than 10 minutes from I64 in a lovely rural area of the ''Knobs'' overlooking Louisville. Wanna stop by for coffee and a scone next trip? But you can't have Brooks.

a2gemini
When you do try the retrofit on the bottom shelves, you will love them. Wonderful to bring everything around so that I am nose to nose with it. Nothing gets lost, nothing has to be moved to access something else.

Bells - just turned down a potential job in Louisville! I would have "commuted" long distance!

I was wondering if you'd attempted to put in toe kicks yet? I have this in mind for 4 different cabinets. I hesitate because I don't know the clips to order. I want to be able to push it with my toe and have it come out, but able to push it in again with my toe. Hence the name, right? TOE kick !

Anyway, how are you handling this?
Thanks,
Christine

Right now I am putting susans (at least 12 of them) in the back corners of the big walk in pantry. This is a pretty easy project, really. Today I took the Christmas tree down --a real tree, rapidly approaching needle-lessness.
Then I cut out two 17'' inch circles, screwed them to bearings, and got them in place. THAT was easy peasy.

But the toe kick drawers are still in line. Not sure I will try to use a system that opens with a push. I think I will use those flat horizontal pulls that install across the top edge of a drawer. I won't be opening them often, so bending down to open them shouldn't be a problem. Pretty sure they WILL close with a kick though! :-)

Not next in line, though. Next is another easy project: making some sliding drawer-thingees that will sit on top of the flatware drawers to slide back and forth and make use of the wasted two or three three inches of vertical space in the those drawers.

You know how it goes. Just playing.

Enjoy your projects!!

I'm thinking of retrofitting a top drawer to hold paper towels. I really like that idea.

Is it Breezy that has that great pantry or Bee? (I'm not certain they're secretly not the same person, they have such beautiful kitchens!) I want to do lazy Susans in the corner of the pantry like, well, like I'm linking.

I was thinking about Pie Susans, but I think my shelves will only be about 6" deep on the left, making an L to the right, where I can make them as much as 18" deep. The one side of the pie would stick out too far. In my head, I probably have to make the either just plain round, or D like yours. I'll figger it out.

Today I'm (doing absolutely nothing but drinking espresso, refreshing Kitchens, eating Reese's and a vat of Mac 'n cheese I made yesterday) going to work on the remaining doors in my MBR. Someday I have to consider hardware.

Geeze. It's always something, isn't it?

I can't do mine like that, though, because the posts are in the front corner. In one of those flashes of imbecility, I thought I could use pie cut susans around the post. DUH. It wouldn't even START to turn. But I can get nearly 17'' diameter susans in those dead corners, which will be a huge improvement over the unreachable depths behind the post.

I just thought of something. In corner shelves like those pictured with no center post, if the susans are made as large as possible and then D cut in a straight line from post to post, access to the contents would be better because protruding shelves above and below would not obscure a rotated shelf. I REALLY wish I didn't have those corner posts!!

Anyway, this is an EASY project. Just cut a plywood circle, screw in 4 screws to attach the bearing, and it's done--except for your fav. chore, painting. But there is no need to paint the bottom, and I'll put cushy cupboards lining on the top, so only the edges need painting.

Oh, it's so nice someone else has done this first -- or is at least thinking about it!

Maybe the toe kick drawers are next.

Nancy--I am afraid these push-to-open latches would be a problem in the toe kick. Every time one's foot hit the thing, it would open. I personally plan to just use a flat, over the top edge pull. Inconspicuous and not gonna open accidentally.

Nancy, I just got the same catalog (probably) and will go through it. I've logged over 50 hours this last week of scanning documents for my divorce. No time to enjoy my hardware catalogues. (Never been a girly-girl, I guess! :)

Thx for the idea!