Maximizing Your Kitchen Storage Space: The Ultimate Guide to Drawer Base Cabinets

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Maximizing Your Kitchen Storage Space: The Ultimate Guide to Drawer Base Cabinets

Drawer base cabinets may be the most useful and versatile type of cabinet in your kitchen. Yet sometimes they’re overlooked or not included in a kitchen layout at all.

We believe that drawer cabinets are one of the 5 Cabinets Every Kitchen Needs. This post is part of a series that takes a deep dive into the various types of kitchen cabinets, what they’re best for, why you need them, and how to include them in your kitchen design.

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FAQs

Q1: What are drawer base cabinets?

A1: Drawer base cabinets are lower cabinets for a kitchen (usually) that have drawers instead of doors. They can have two, three, or four drawers, although three and four are more common. 

Q2: Why are drawer base cabinets good to have in my kitchen?

A2: Drawer base cabinets offer a lot more usable storage than cabinets with doors. They’re easier to access because they pull open (no crouching or bending!), and they’re easier to organize because everything is in sight at one time.

Q3: What are common sizes?

A3: Four-drawer cabinets are usually 18 to 21 inches wide and three-drawer cabinets are generally between 27 and 36 inches wide. It is possible to get wider drawer cabinets from good cabinet companies. You can also sometimes get customized drawer depths. Two-drawer cabinets are not as common, but they can be anywhere from 18 to 48 inches wide.

What are Drawer Base Cabinets?

Drawer base cabinets are lower cabinets that have drawers all the way down, instead of having one drawer with cabinet doors below it, or tall cabinet doors. Drawer bases generally have either three or four drawers.

Three-drawer cabinets have deeper drawers and are useful for storing pots and pans, mixing bowls, dishes, and even sometimes small appliances. Four-drawer cabinets are useful for organizing and storing spices, utensils, food storage containers, and dishrags. We believe that 4-drawer base cabinets are the most useful type of cabinet in the kitchen.

Related Post: Tall Cabinets

Tall cabinets can add a lot of storage and visuall appeal to your kitchen.

Read more here. 

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Benefits of Drawer Base Cabinets

Drawer base cabinets offer a host of benefits and conveniences for your kitchen. If you’ve never used them before, once you try them in your space, you’ll wonder how you lived without them. 

Accessibility

Drawer base cabinets offer enhanced accessibility. It’s so much easier to lift a heavy pot or a glass baking dish out of a deep drawer than it is to crouch down, reach into the back of a cabinet, and lift up and out. Drawers are incredibly helpful for people with mobility concerns and for older people, but they really do make life easier for everyone. No kneeling, crouching, or searching in the deep recesses of cabinets anymore–you can see what you need easily and access it without any problems.

Organization and Storage

Drawer base cabinets can also help your kitchen stay more organized and operate more efficiently. Because you can pull a drawer all the way out, you can see everything in it, including what’s in the very back. With a traditional cabinet, the items in the back tend to get lost. With a deep drawer, not only can you see everything that it holds, but you can also stack and organize items in a way that makes them easy to find. 

By using drawer dividers, you can effectively organize the drawers to contain whatever items you choose, and you can see them all easily at a glance. (This blog post gives you links to some of our favorite organizing tools–and many of them are for drawers!) We often recommend the Blum line of drawer organizers which are dishwasher safe and flexible. They’re made of steel and nylon, and they have a lifetime guarantee.

Deep drawers are great for storing larger items, and for helping you maintain clear countertops by keeping smaller appliances (like toasters, mixers, and food processors) out of sight. 

Aesthetics

Drawer base cabinets in the kitchen look modern and on-trend. Deep drawers instead of lower cabinets add interest to the kitchen because they are different than the upper cabinets and they cause your eye to move horizontally instead of vertically. They add visual interest and they look sleek and contemporary in all the best ways.

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Drawer Base Specs

4-Drawer Bases

As we previously mentioned, the 4-drawer base cabinet is our choice for one of the most useful cabinets available for your kitchen. In fact, we like to include two of these units when possible in every kitchen we design. We place one near the sink and one near the range.

We generally recommend using 4-drawer bases that are between 18 inches and 21 inches wide, although in larger kitchens, or kitchens where homeowners cook a lot and have a lot of utensils and kitchen items to organize, wider ones are available. Many drawer bases have standard drawer depths, but the better cabinet companies offer customization.

3-Drawer Bases

Generally, these bases with three drawers include a smaller top drawer and two deeper bottom drawers. They offer an incredible amount of storage and customization. We like to use at least two of these drawer bases in every kitchen. 

We recommend that 3-drawer bases be 27 inches to 36 inches wide. We have found that if they are narrower than 27 inches, it becomes difficult to fit larger items in. You can even find them as wide as 48 inches with the better cabinet lines. 

These bases are great for storing dishes (using a peg system so they won’t slide around), appliances, pots and pans, and even table linens. You’ll be amazed at how much more a drawer base will hold than a typical cabinet with doors.

2-Drawer Bases

This simple and sleek design is often a great fit in a kitchen where specific storage is needed. The drawers are very deep and able to hold large items. Every kitchen might not require a 2-drawer base, but they can be very useful. Widths can range from 18 inches to 48 inches.

Drawer organization

Want Some Inspiration In Your Inbox? 

How to Plan for Drawer Bases

There are a lot of ideas about how to incorporate drawer bases into your kitchen design.

  • Many people recommend using at least one drawer base for every vertical door base cabinet in your kitchen. 
  • We generally say you need at least four: two that have three drawers and two that have four drawers. 
  • Sometimes, homeowners choose all drawer bases for their lower cabinets. 
  • We tend to like to mix it up a little with some drawers and some door cabinets. 

What you choose really will depend on the size and layout of your kitchen, as well as your budget, needs, and desires. Our team is here to help you decide the best plan for your kitchen that will give you optimal organization and storage and a gorgeous design you can be proud of.

Drawer Base Cabinets Beyond the Kitchen

Drawer base cabinets have other uses besides just in the kitchen. They’re incredibly useful in bathrooms as storage under your sink and vanity. If the drawers are deep enough to hold products upright (hair spray, sunscreen, etc), they can make it easy to find what you need and keep you from losing items. You can have outlets installed in your drawers for hair dryers and straighteners, making it easy to use and store those items. 

Drawer bases also have their place in laundry rooms and mud rooms, holding detergent, hats and gloves, sports equipment, and more. And in the garage, a few drawer bases with a counter on top could be the perfect workbench, providing tool storage and organization right where you need it.

What’s Next?

If you’re considering a kitchen refresh or remodel and you’re in the Tallahassee, Florida area, we’re here to help you. We serve neighborhoods like Golden Eagle, Southwood, and more, and we’ve been serving Tallahassee homeowners for almost twenty years. Come stop by and visit our showroom, or contact us today. Let’s talk about what you need to make your home just right for you and your family to enjoy.