Kitchen Elevations

I drew these at twice (half?) the scale so I could get better precision. It didn’t really help; this is still definitely NOT a blueprint. I’ve reduced them to share here. The shapes are made for floor plans, not elevations; that’s why they look so strange. That and the exhaust fan is actually a CRT monitor template. The appliance wall is the interesting one:

The question that prompted the elevation drawing was “where’s the cutlery?” The cooking utensils can live in the two shallow drawers between the stove and the sink, which are carefully sized to create a cabinet under them that matches the height of the under-sink cabinets. I do not want one giant drawer in which the tongs entangle with the whisks.

The distance between the countertop and the longer cabinets is 18 inches. I’m thinking of sacrificing the spice-rack-next-to-stove for a higher cabinet bottom with a (small – it’s only a foot wide) pot rack under it. Some pans can go under the oven (which I didn’t measure, so the space below could be very different) and some under the cutlery. There’s plenty of storage behind us, but before turning all the way around, let’s rotate 90 degrees right:

Across the top, we’re suffering from grid precision. Assume the three blocks of double-doored cabinets that are all the same. The far right is the end view of the door at the end of the row of cabinets along the wall at drawing-right. The partial door between that and the three-block row is one side of a lazy-susan. The partial door at the right, below the counter is the same thing. I’m not sure about the double-drawer, short cupboard set of three. Making those single-drawer would make that a great line of “garbage”, “recycling”, “cat food” cans behind the doors on rollout tracks. I’ve always felt under-drawered, but I could just switch them with on the row to our right…

Given the description of the wall to the left of this one, it should be fairly clear what we’re looking at: Up and Down lazy-susans on the left, four identical double-door sets across the top, with a special one on the end, and three identical drawer/cupboard sets across the bottom, with another cutlery-drawer special on the end. I like the idea of the double-drawer one here. I’m not going to re-upload the pictures.

The whole thing is 10 identical blocks of 24x36x12 with double 12″ doors, one 12x36x12 front-and-side doored, one lazy-susan (however one measures those), one 12x12x52, and one 12x24x52 across the top. The bottom is more eclectic, but not wildly so: 3 sets of 16x36x24 drawer/cupboard pairs, 3 sets of 16x36x24 drawer-drawer/cupboard triplets, one lazy-susan, one under-sink cupboard, and two cutlery cabinets (one 16x36x24; the other 10x36x24). Oh, and the weird spacer broom closet thing.

All dimensions written here are without framing (i.e. the white “doors” in the picture, not the larger dark framing they sit against) so professional measuring should make everything slightly larger (or the spaces between them slightly larger to keep the nice, even measurements).

This is a tremendous amount of cupboard – and drawer – space. Leaving height aside:

• Two pull-out drawers in each under-counter cupboard is 16x24x12; two square feet by 12 for big stuff. Maybe one of the under-double-drawer with just a single pull-out for something tall such as the Instapot or Kitchen Aid.
• Two shelves per glass-doored upper cupboard is 24x12x8; two square feet by 8 for “let it be seen” (and dusted – ugh) dishware.
• Two shelves per opaque-doored upper cupboard is 24x12x12; two square feet by 12 for both hidden dishware (e.g. fondu pots over the refrigerator) and staples (e.g. flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder, etc…).
• Two lazy-susans for canned goods (they’re excellent for that).
• About 38 square feet of counter-top – leaving out the dining counter.
• Wait, there’s more: 13 drawers! The one next to the door is clearly the junk drawer and the two on the other end clearly cutlery (yes, we have two drawers worth, easily)

The whole thing in a very plain style – almost as drawn. It will be much easier to refinish (i.e. “paint”) them over the years without beveled corners and routed edges that collect dirt and create drips with wet paint. I’m thinking glass doors on the window-wall uppers. Single-hole pulls aren’t as nice as handles on drawers, but again: Getting new hardware is easier when one doesn’t need to match the spacing of the holes.

And we end up with seating for eight if we squeeze in. That is very unexpected and pleasing. Day-to-day, four stools out is more than enough (three living room side; one kitchen side). We can store the extra four in the garage (wrapped in plastic). AND there is more visible storage above that for all the serving crap that I debated not moving.