Using common cabinets in your kitchen design

Any time you can keep your selections on stock sizes and items goes a long way in keeping the cost of your project down. So it’s a good idea to know what the stock sizes are as you design your space. Standard lengths for plywood and melamine cabinets are 8′ and 12′ in a 4′ width. Keep these dimensions in mind when creating your design.

While you can always have the manufacturer make some special, custom additions to your cabinets, you may be able to start with a standard cabinet and simply have a local cabinetmaker do some aftermarket work on your cabinets to make them look custom without paying. The full custom price.

Kitchen cabinets are typically 12″ deep and lower cabinets are typically 24″ deep. Typically, you won’t run into a problem with these two dimensions. The challenge comes when you adjust the width of your cabinet. Cabinets come in 1′ increments and luckily your kitchen space may not be a measurement that is divisible by foot increments. As a result, you can end up with a little pocket of odd space that you have to deal with if you’re using regular cabinets in your kitchen.

The best ideas for a floor plan

To design your cabinets, get ¼-inch graph paper and draw a detailed floor plan. You can use a scale from 1 inch to 1 foot. Draw the perimeter of your kitchen to scale on the graph paper. Then mark all the openings in the room, such as windows and doors. Don’t include the current cabinets on your drawing, but you may want to mark where the refrigerator and sink go, unless you’re planning to move the plumbing. You may also want to mark where your stove is if redoing the vent is a big problem. Rewiring a stove is usually not a big deal, but redoing the vent can be.

Now make some standard size cabinets out of paper cutouts. Make a variety of standard size cutouts so you can move them around the kitchen to find the configuration that works best. You may also want to have a cutout for your refrigerator and stove to add to the mix.

Now that you have your layout grid ready to go, there are a few things you want to consider when creating your layout.

o Do not place drawers in a corner. If you do, the space next to the drawers will just be dead space. It would be a better option to put two cabinets side by side in a corner, because you can modify a standard cabinet and add an opening in the side so you can access the space in the corner. This mod will not show once the cabinets are assembled.
o Do not place your stove in a corner. Even if you have counter space on either side of the corner, the cabinet next to the stove will be useless.
o Keep cabinet corners at least 18 inches. If it is narrower, you will create a cabinet that is too narrow to use.
o Leave enough space in the drawers. If in doubt, add more drawers than you think you’ll need. While it’s great to have enough drawers for silverware and stirring spoons, you’ll want a place to store your other kitchen essentials like aluminum foil, rubber bands, pot holders, and dish towels.
o Add a lazy Susan to your corner. Adding a turntable to your corner spaces will allow you to use them more efficiently.
o Use common sense. Your refrigerator keeps food cold, and your stove and oven heat food. Do not put them next to each other. It will only make your fridge work harder to do its job and wear it out faster. You may also want to consider what this brainstorming would cost you in higher utility bills.

Whenever you design a kitchen, you’ll want to keep the efficient food preparation triangle in mind. This is a pattern made up of your refrigerator, sink, and stove. If you have to put all these spaces on a single wall, try to have your sink in the middle.

After you decide on the configuration of your lower cabinets, you can decide where your upper cabinets will go. Now, instead of a floor plan style layout, you’ll want to see the elevation view of your room. This view shows the walls of your room to scale. Shows all window and door openings, and shows the height and width of each. We are not concerned with depth in this drawing; Your goal is to mark the height of all the base cabinets. Standard base cabinets are typically 34 ½” tall, allowing your countertop to be about 36″ off the floor.

First, mark your refrigerator and draw a line around your room. This is the level of the bottom of the upper cabinets. Your regular wall cabinets will be 18″ above the counter or 54″ off the floor. If you prefer, you can always mount your cabinets 16″ above the counter to help you reach the second shelf more easily.

Once you can see what the top view of your new cabinets will look like, go back to the floor layout and mark a 12″ line to indicate the depth of the upper cabinets wherever you plan to mount an upper cabinet.

If you make paper cutouts of your cabinets from the elevation view, you can align them on your elevation drawing to see how they look. In particular, you want to look at how the vertical lines of the doors line up. Even if the lines between the upper and lower cabinets don’t completely match, you need to make sure they create an aesthetically appealing pattern and don’t look disjointed. Move your paper cutouts around to see which patterns are the most attractive before deciding on the final placement of your cabinet.

Once you’ve moved your paper cutouts around and decided on your cabinet configuration, you’ll have a very clear understanding of how they’ll look in your kitchen.