It doesn’t seem that long ago when the first thing I would look for within the design paperwork of a new kitchen installation was whether it was to be a high-line kitchen or a draw-line kitchen. That dreaded drawer-line kitchen, Ugh!
So many drawers to build, so many dummy drawer fronts to fit, way too many door / drawer lines to match up and God forbid any one cabinet was slightly off square. You’d be adjusting doors and drawers for ever.
Other than the cutlery drawer, it pretty much ended up just drawer after drawer of what you knew would be wasted space. Each one too small to be of any real use in a kitchen. We all love a junk drawer but five, six, seven of them is pushing it.
The alternative was the high-line kitchen with a single drawer pack, which consists of two shallow drawers and a deep one. Great, if all you have is two pots and a frying pan to fill the deep drawer with.
Then there’s the issue of seeing what’s at the back of each cabinet and then accessing it. None of this is very easy when it’s all happening below waist height.
So, do we want drawers or don’t we? Definitely! Just neither of the options described above.
With greater use of double, deep style drawers throughout your design, instead of solely using the traditional base cabinets and full height doors, you can transform your kitchen from being awkward and hard to access into something that’s slick, with storage that’s very easily accessible.
No longer will that grater be lost at the back of a unit, never to be found. Never again will your client be forced onto their hands and knees to reach for items at the back of the cabinet, all the while filled with the constant fear of knocking over everything that is precariously balanced at the front.
The beauty of the double drawer set up is the complete ease of access to the whole drawer from above. By extending the drawer fully, everything that’s in there is within easy reach. No more hidden corners to deal with.
With the clever use of divisional separators, the drawers can be set up to suit the client’s needs without having the contents sloshing around inside.
The additional depth in this type of drawer is also ideal for keeping pots and pans organised and quickly accessible.
A cool feature can be the use of a hidden drawer, tucked away and concealed from view inside a top-drawer void, ideal as a cutlery drawer. Having a made-to-measure inset tray inside this drawer, for cutlery, is a must.
A completely different type of drawer for consideration in your design, would be a warming drawer. Life can be hectic at times and not every household can sit down, and all have dinner at the same time. A warming drawer will absolutely take the pain out of these situations for the customer by helping keep food warm. The same drawer with its low warming temperatures is also ideal for slow cooking, waving goodbye to their crock pot.
Where would we be without our drawers in the kitchen? It doesn’t bear thinking about!
This article was first published in Kitchens & Bathrooms News in March 2020 (pg 47) https://www.kandbnews.co.uk/magazines/march-2020/
On The Mark 