Customizing Narrow Kitchen Cabinets For Maximal Space
Small, narrow kitchens present a variety of storage and organizational challenges. Fitting standard depth cabinets into a tiny galley kitchen often leads to wasted space and difficulty accessing items. By customizing shallow cabinets with specialized storage solutions, you can transform cramped quarters into a highly functional culinary space.
Strategic cabinet customization tailored to your kitchen's footprint optimizes every inch. This allows you to accommodate all your essentials with room to cook and move. Read on to explore smart customizations that make narrow kitchen cabinets uniquely yours.
Narrow Cabinet Limitations
Common Depth Issues
Standard kitchen cabinets range anywhere from 24 to 30 inches deep. When installed in a small kitchen, the extra depth quickly eats up valuable floorspace. Cabinets protruding far from the wall leave minimal room for cooking islands, traffic aisles, and movement.
Excess depth also prevents you from easily accessing items stored in the back of cabinets. It becomes a hassle to constantly remove everything up front to reach pots, food, or supplies toward the rear. You end up wasting functional space you paid for.
Problems with Interior Storage
Even with shallow cabinets, storage limitations persist if interiors are not designed efficiently. Stacked plates, cups, and food items get buried when you can't see what's in the back. Things inevitably get shoved in haphazardly and forgotten until they expire.
Disorganization leads to frustration as you dig around for a specific ingredient or tool. Standard cabinets lack specialized storage compartments needed for small items like spices, utensils, and cookware.
Challenges with Drawers
In narrow kitchens, shallow drawers become virtually useless. Typical cutlery dividers poorly compartmentalize space, while deep cookware takes up the entire drawer. Items constantly topple over and shift around, making it tedious to find what you need.
Full-extension drawer glides help, but standard widths limit capacity. You can only fit so many utensils and gadgets into a narrow drawer before it overflows.
Customization Options
Adjustable Base Cabinets
For maximized floorspace, order base cabinets at non-standard depths tailored to your kitchen's dimensions. Opt for adjustable shelves, allowing you to reposition them as needed. Install sturdy shelf pins at various heights to accommodate taller small appliances or oddly shaped items.
Keep dead space to a minimum by removing unnecessary fixed components. Take advantage of roll-out trays, vertical slotted dividers, or pull-out baskets to neatly organize contents.
Roll-Out Trays and Organizers
Installing slides or tracks in cabinet bases lets you fully extend contents for easy access. Sturdy chrome wire, wood, or plastic trays corral like items and can be stacked. For corners, try L-shaped pull-out trays on bottom cabinets.
Other space-saving options are pan organizers, waste bin pull-outs, appliance garages for mixers and blenders, and swing-out spice organizers. Door racks, tilt-out trays, and vertical dividers also help.
Full-Extension Drawers
Replace standard drawers with full extension options featuring smooth ball bearing glides. Side-mount cutlery organizers, utensil dividers, and compartments maximize usable space. Consider deep narrow drawers for cooking tools and wide shallower drawers up top.
Install dividers or small bins to neatly corral and separate items. Adjustable dividers allow you to custom configure the layout. Try crosswise dividers to split a drawer into quadrants.
Custom Shelving and Dividers
Work with your cabinet maker to design interior shelving suited for your unique storage needs. Opt for glass doors to easily identify contents. Install adjustable shelves at various heights or angles to accommodate different sized items.
Vertical partitions, cubbies, and compartments make the most of narrow spaces. Sliding shelves and tray dividers provide smooth access. A carousel corner lazy susan provides effortless access to items stored in notoriously tough to reach corners.
Sliding Pull-Out Cabinets
An alternative to deep drawers is installing pull-out shelves or trays within standard cabinet boxes. Opt for full extension slides for easy access. Try staggered heights or vertical dividers to better organize space. These make great pantry pull-outs.
Storage Solutions for Different Spaces
Pantry Cabinet Hacks
For narrow pantries, use pull-out cabinetry to neatly store dry goods, cans, jars, and boxed items. Install narrow vertical racks or hanging racks for spices, packaged foods, and cooking tools. Lazy susans and multi-tier organizers also help.
Corner Cabinet Optimizations
Take advantage of wasted corners with rotating two-tier organizers, vertical dividers, or diagonal shelves installed. Quart-sized lazy susans for corner base cabinets provide easy access to small jars and bottles. An L-shaped pull-out is another excellent use of corner space.
Vertical Dividers for Drawers
Make the most of narrow drawer space with sturdy dividers installed vertically rather than horizontally. These create neat compartments for stacked cutting boards, baking sheets, lids, dishes, utensils and more. Opt for chrome, wood, or acrylic dividers.
Tiered Shelving and Risers
Multi-level organizers, risers, and vertical rack systems transform cabinets with otherwise unusable space. Staggered heights allow you to make the most of every inch of height. Great for dishes, glasses, food boxes and small appliances.
Style Considerations
Hardware and Styling for Narrow Cabinets
Even shallow cabinets can make a stylish statement with the right details. Swap out dated hardware for knobs and pulls in polished chrome, glass, or brass. Undercabinet lights show off interiors and contents. Opt for recessed panel doors and clean lines.
Open shelving, glass cabinet fronts, and frosted glass doors lend visual depth. Molding trim frames cabinets nicely without adding depth. Crown molding caps off wall cabinets with a built-in look.
Glass-Front Cabinet Options
Glass-front wall cabinets maximize light and display space while retaining a shallow footprint. For a lighter look, try durable tempered glass shelves inside. LED puck lights highlight gleaming glassware. Glass doors on base cabinets reveal organized interiors.
Make glass cabinets really shine by injecting pops of color with servings ware or cookbooks on display. Pro tip: Install dimmable LED strip lighting to create a warm ambiance for glass contents.
Lighting to Showcase Interior
Proper kitchen cabinet lighting transforms even shallow cabinets into functional storage. LED lighting strips installed under wall cabinets provide task lighting. Interior lighting lets you see contents easily.
Lighting on vertical tracks inside cabinets coves illuminates top to bottom. Puck lights, LED strips and cords safely install inside cabinets. Dimming lets you control ambiance and showcase organized contents.
By tailoring storage to meet your unique needs, it's possible to maximize every inch of narrow kitchen cabinet space. Strategically designed interiors, pull-outs, dividers and lighting allow you to neatly organize essentials for effortless access.
Thoughtful customization solutions help transform shallow cabinets from a kitchen nightmare into a highly functional culinary workspace. Your dream kitchen awaits, even in the tiniest of layouts.