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Kitchen Cabinet Storage That Actually Gets Used: What to Order, What It Costs, and What Sits Empty
Kitchen Cabinets
Kitchen Cabinet Storage: What Gets Used and What Gets Forgotten
Every showroom has a wall of accessories, every one of them clever, and every one of them an extra line on the quote. After enough kitchens you notice which ones the owners are still using three years later and which ones are holding a bag of plastic bags. This is that list, with what each one costs at an Ontario shop’s price.
The ones that earn their keep, every time
- Pull-out trash and recycling, beside the sink. $250 to $450 for a double-bin pull-out in an 18 in. base. Ontario households have three streams minimum (garbage, blue bin, green bin), so a triple pull-out in a 24 in. base ($400 to $600) is better and nobody regrets it. This is the single most-used accessory in any kitchen and it goes in before anything else.
- Deep drawers instead of doors, everywhere you can. Not an accessory, a cabinet choice, and the one that changes a kitchen most. About 15% on the base run; the whole argument is on the drawers vs. doors page.
- A pegboard or adjustable dividers in the pot drawer. $80 to $200. Without it, a deep drawer of pots is a pile; with it, each pot has a spot. Wooden pegs on a drilled base are the nicest; a simple set of adjustable dividers does the same thing for less.
- Cutlery and utensil inserts, sized to the drawer. $60 to $180 per drawer for a wood or steel insert that fits the drawer exactly, instead of a plastic tray that slides around. Order the drawer around the insert, not the other way: a 24 in. drawer takes a full cutlery insert and a knife block side by side.
- Vertical tray dividers above the fridge or oven. $40 to $100 for two or three dividers in a 15 or 18 in. high cabinet. Baking sheets, cutting boards, muffin tins, the pizza stone, all standing up and reachable. The cabinet above the fridge is otherwise the least useful box in the kitchen.
- Roll-out shelves in the pantry. $120 to $250 per roll-out. A 24 in. deep pantry with fixed shelves loses the back 12 in. to things that expire. Three or four roll-outs below eye level and fixed shelves above is the layout that works. A full-height pull-out pantry ($900 to $1,800) is the showroom star, holds less than roll-outs in the same cabinet, and takes a strong pull when loaded.
The corner, which is its own problem
Every L or U kitchen has at least one inside corner, and every corner is 36 in. of base cabinet that a normal door cannot reach into. The options, in order of how well they actually work:
| Corner solution | Cost (add-on) | How well it works |
|---|---|---|
| Lazy susan (two round shelves, 36 x 36 corner cabinet) | $150 to $350 | Fine. Pots, small appliances, bulk items. The old pie-cut style with the attached door is dated; the kidney-shaped shelves behind a hinged bi-fold door are better. |
| Blind corner pull-out (the shelves swing out and then pull toward you) | $600 to $1,400 | Good, and the best use of a blind corner. Brands matter: Hafele, Kessebohmer, Rev-A-Shelf. The cheap ones bind under load. |
| Corner drawers (diagonal) | $800 to $1,500 extra | Look great, hold awkwardly shaped amounts, the drawer fronts are expensive and the runners work hard. Rarely worth it. |
| Nothing: a blind corner with a door and a reach | $0 | Holds the things you use once a year, which every kitchen has. Not wrong if money is tight. |
| Design the corner out | $0 to the cost of an appliance | Put the range or the dishwasher at the corner with a filler, or end the run before the corner and put a tall pantry on the other wall. The layout page covers it. |
Worth it in the right kitchen
Spice pull-out beside the range
$200 to $400 for a 6 or 9 in. pull-out. Used daily if you cook, and it uses a width that is otherwise a filler. Order it 9 in. if you can; the 6 in. one holds 20 jars.
Under-sink pull-out
$150 to $300 for a U-shaped pull-out that clears the drain. Cleaning supplies that you can see. The sink base is otherwise the worst cabinet in the kitchen to reach into.
Appliance garage
$300 to $900, a counter-height cabinet with a lift-up or pocket door, for the toaster, kettle and coffee maker. Works if there is an outlet inside it and the counter underneath is the one you use. Looks tidy. Takes 15 to 18 in. of counter.
Mixer lift
$250 to $450 for a shelf that swings a stand mixer up to counter height. If you bake weekly, it changes whether you bake. If you bake at Christmas, it is a shelf.
Charging drawer
$100 to $250 for an outlet inside a shallow drawer. Phones off the counter. Needs the electrician to put the outlet there, which is $150 if it is on the plan and $400 if it is not.
Toe-kick drawer
$200 to $400 each, a shallow drawer in the toe-kick space. Holds baking sheets and the step stool. Clever, and the owners who have them do use them. Needs a 4-1/2 in. toe kick.
The ones that end up holding a bag of bags
The pull-down upper shelf. A shelf in the upper cabinet that swings down to counter height. $300 to $500, and it holds less than the shelf it replaces, swings into your face, and is used for the first month. The better fix for a short cook is uppers 15 in. above the counter instead of 18, or a step stool in a toe-kick drawer.
The plate rack. Vertical slots for dinner plates, usually in a glass-fronted upper. Lovely in a magazine. Plates in a drawer with a peg divider are faster and dust-free.
The wine rack cabinet. An open 12 in. cabinet with X dividers, beside the range, where it is warm. Storing wine next to the oven is the opposite of storing wine. If you want bottles on show, put the rack at the end of the island, away from the heat, or buy a small wine fridge.
The full-height pull-out pantry. Mentioned above. It is sold hard because it is expensive. It holds about 60% of what roll-out shelves in the same box hold.
Open shelves instead of uppers. Not an accessory, a decision, and in a working kitchen it is a decision to dust everything on them monthly and to have the cereal on display. One short run of open shelf for the things you like to look at, and closed uppers for the rest.
How to budget for it
On a mid-grade kitchen, a sensible accessory package is about $1,500 to $2,500 on top of the cabinets: trash pull-out, pot drawer dividers, two cutlery inserts, tray dividers, three pantry roll-outs, a spice pull-out and a corner pull-out. That is roughly 5 to 8% of the cabinet price, and it is the 5 to 8% you notice every day. The cabinet calculator has a drawer-heavy option; add the accessories as a line in your budget and ask each shop to price the same list so the quotes compare. If you are refacing rather than replacing, most of these retrofit into existing boxes for 30 to 50% more than the new-kitchen price, and the trash pull-out and roll-outs are the best money in that case; see refacing vs. replacement.
Questions people ask
What is the most useful kitchen cabinet accessory?
A pull-out trash and recycling cabinet beside the sink. Then deep drawers with dividers. Everything else is after those two.
Are pull-out pantry cabinets worth it?
The full-height pull-out unit, usually not; roll-out shelves in a standard pantry cabinet hold more for a third of the price. The exception is a 12 in. or narrower gap where a roll-out shelf will not fit and a slim pull-out will.
What is the best corner cabinet solution?
A blind corner pull-out from a known brand, if the budget allows. A kidney-shaped lazy susan if it does not. Designing the corner out of the layout beats both.
How much do cabinet organizers cost?
Individually $40 to $1,400 depending on the piece. A sensible package on a new mid-grade kitchen is $1,500 to $2,500 installed. Retrofitting into existing cabinets costs 30 to 50% more per item.
Can I add organizers to existing cabinets?
Most of them, yes. Roll-outs, trash pull-outs, spice pull-outs and drawer inserts all retrofit. Corner pull-outs depend on the corner cabinet’s construction. A good cabinet shop or a kitchen-organizer installer will do it in a day.
The short list
Trash pull-out, drawers with dividers, tray dividers over the fridge, roll-outs in the pantry, a real corner solution, a spice pull-out if you cook. Skip the pull-down shelf and the wine rack by the stove. Spend the difference on better runners.
