Which costs more?

[Rick Potter]

Still working on my kitchen redo. I have a lot of drawers. Some show, some behind doors. I am using KV full extension side mounted slides at about 10-15 bucks a set. I just counted 55 drawers in the kitchen proper, with a large pantry coming next. I figure I am spending half as much for the slides as I am for the oak and prefinished ply.

If I were using the nice Blum under drawer units, at 25-30 bucks a set, I think I would be spending as much on the slides as the kitchen.

How about you??

Rick Potter

[Duane Meadows]

Yep, the hardware is a major part of the expense. Didn't have that many drawers(only 18), but with the slides, hinges an door pulls, quite an expense. However my wife and I really like the full extension, soft close drawers we have now, so definitely worth it IMHO!

[Joe Hillmann]

Do you mind putting up pictures of your kitchen. I cant imagine a kitchen having that many drawers. I've never had a kitchen with more than 4 drawers.

[Mark Bolton]

We just finished one. I dont have a total drawer count (never bothered) but I think the slides were about 1400.00. Grass Dynapro's. You can do a lot better than 25-30 bucks for under mounts. I think these were 17+ for the slides and maybe 2-3 for the locks. Soft close of course.

I know people dont like the slight loss of drawer depth but I think as long as you can buy the undermounts in the teens they are the nicest option. Clean, super easy to remove to clean drawers and pullouts, and so on.

Im sure you've already got it planned but wait till you go to buy hardware :eek:. This job, counting vanities, medicine cabs, laundry, and kitchen, about 160 doors and fronts.. thankfully they picked an economical pull and knob :rolleyes:

[David Kumm]

Also check the internet if you haven't. There are places that sell Blum for less than Rockler or Woodcraft. As I recall 16-20 per set. They are appreciated every time you open a drawer so not a bad price to pay. Dave

[Stew Hagerty]

Also check the internet if you haven't. There are places that sell Blum for less than Rockler or Woodcraft. As I recall 16-20 per set. They are appreciated every time you open a drawer so not a bad price to pay. Dave

You don't happen to remember where that was do you Dave? I'm going to be starting a kitchen for my mom after the first of the year.

[Mark Bolton]

I think ahturf is about the cheapest for retail slides if your not buying wholesale. Their pricing seems to be right in line with what we pay for case quantities, maybe a buck higher but often the same.

[Stew Hagerty]

Do you mind putting up pictures of your kitchen. I cant imagine a kitchen having that many drawers. I've never had a kitchen with more than 4 drawers.

I don't have a particularly large kitchen, but it is just the right size for the house and our family. Technically, I have have 8 drawers. I have 5 drawer/door base cabinets and a 36" wide 3-drawer base (I put in another one of these if I could).

However, I didn't count the pull out trash can in one our base cabs. I also didn't count that 4 of the 5 base cabinets have slide out shelves. Oh... and I also didn't count the 36" wide slide out tray in the top section of the pantry cabinet.

So, even though I "only" have 8 drawers, I have 18 pairs of slides. So calculating the number of "drawers" isn't so straight forward. BTW, the door/drawer units all have standard inexpensive cabinet slides, but the rest are all full extension (I built the home in 2000, before soft-close was used much)

[Jeff Duncan]

I use the Blum slides as my standard for most projects. However I've never encountered a project with 55 kitchen drawers:confused: I mean holy cow....how big is that kitchen:eek: How many people are you feeding with that much cabinetry?

For reference an average large sized kitchen for me would be about 10 - 14 drawers.

good luck,
JeffD

[Mark Bolton]

I use the Blum slides as my standard for most projects. However I've never encountered a project with 55 kitchen drawers:confused: I mean holy cow....how big is that kitchen:eek: How many people are you feeding with that much cabinetry?

For reference an average large sized kitchen for me would be about 10 - 14 drawers.

good luck,
JeffD

I was thinking the same thing. Perhaps Rick is a step down from bill gates or got a little over exuberant with drawers ;-)

I just went back and looked at this last kitchen and including an office area on a rough count there are about 25-27 slides which includes pullouts in all base cabs. Its not a huge kitchen either. With the seeming move towards more drawers and pullouts I could see the count going ever higher but 55 is a pretty major number.

[Rick Potter]

It is not really that big, but the wife wants every lower cabinet to have either drawers, or pull out shelf trays (drawers). OK, just measured it.....15 X 15. Two sides of it open into an office area, and a hallway, and there are cabinets on both sides of those two sides. Now, some of those cabinets are only 11" deep, but they are still cabinets with drawers most everywhere, and other cabinets are 5 sided, under cabinet corners, and there is even a built in file cabinet, on the side facing the little office area.

Some may remember. This is the wife who wants every useable space available (which eliminated the blum slides). The bottom drawers are a full 24" long, except for the topmost one which is 23", to leave space for the nail strip. Very few of the drawers are alike, and some 5 sided ones are downright weird. She is designing the kitchen herself, and a lot has been changed as we build.

Now stop! If you are asking why I am going to all this trouble....We moved into this house with the agreement that I get my dedicated shop first, in exchange for her getting the house the way she wants it. A deal is a deal. Besides, she is really good at design. She drew up the whole renovation on the house too.

I will see if I can post a pic or two, but it's a work in progress.

Rick Potter

[Mark Bolton]

Now stop!


Id say your a solid stand up guy and your dead on the right path. Sounds like you struck a pretty sweet deal.

[Mark Blatter]

Id say your a solid stand up guy and your dead on the right path. Sounds like you struck a pretty sweet deal.

And if you aren't a stand up guy you may end up dead. Always remember that wives clearly understand the best way to a man's heart.....is right through the chest wall with a sharp knife.

[Bud Millis]

Rick,

Are you buying your stuff wholesale or paying retail? Can't wait to see pictures of the kitchen.

[johnny means]

I buy most of my hardware wholesale but have found that often Ikea has the best prices on drawer slides. Their slides are Ikea badged blums.

BTW, your wife is a smart woman. You'll appreciate all the drawers in the long run, much easier as we lose or youthful nimbleness.

[Rick Potter]

I don't even remember my youthful nimbleness. Not only is she smart, she is verrry patient. We got most of our slides from Woodworkers Hardware. We found a few places that had it a bit cheaper, but their shipping more than made up for it. A box of those puppies is heavy. She already has the knobs from when Woodcraft had a closeout sale on them.

Rick P

[Leo Graywacz]

Still working on my kitchen redo. I have a lot of drawers. Some show, some behind doors. I am using KV full extension side mounted slides at about 10-15 bucks a set. I just counted 55 drawers in the kitchen proper, with a large pantry coming next. I figure I am spending half as much for the slides as I am for the oak and prefinished ply.

If I were using the nice Blum under drawer units, at 25-30 bucks a set, I think I would be spending as much on the slides as the kitchen.

How about you??

Rick Potter

I pay $17 for my Blum Tandems (21")

[Richard Coers]

Put in the better slides. It will cost you less than $900 extra, but they will last way longer. $900 over 15 years is pretty small potatoes. KV was never known for high end slides, and that price reflects it. I'm a fan of all drawers in base cabinets. I've always thought it was silly though to have slides behind doors. Why take the extra effort to pull open a door to get to a slide? It takes special effort to keep the slides from hitting doors, or the use of plastic bumpers. I made some 11" deep drawers in our kitchen. Works great for "Tupperware" and all but the biggest stuff.

[Leo Graywacz]

Roll out shelves are nice. Older folks really like them. Put your pots and pans on them and you can open the door, pull out the shelf/drawer with your pots and pans and you can have much easier access to them. It can be a costly update if you want them in all of your lowers.

Simple is just a shelf on some slides. better is a small edge around the shelf to keep things from sliding off, you still need to be careful when opening and closing. Even better is a 3 or 4" tall drawer to contain everything. Especially in pantries.

[Ed Edwards]

A&H turf usually has resonable prices for Blum

ed

[Mark Bolton]

Even better is a 3 or 4" tall drawer to contain everything. Especially in pantries.

This is usually the route we try to get our customers to go with. By default nearly every door base has a pullout for exactly the reasons you mention. As people age crawling back in to a cab to get something or unloading the front is a chore. As to just making them a drawer, the pull out tray/shelf still allows for very tall pan/mixer/appliance/etc storage and access to the entire rear of the cabinet. There are trade offs with each option and a bit of care when opening is one of them with pull-out

[Andrew Joiner]

There is a trend toward more drawers. There's even some "all drawer" kitchens. A higher drawer front with low drawer sides gives easier access than rolling shelves. Convince and good slides cost more, but I'd love an all drawer kitchen.
This photo I found on Google shows metal drawer sides. Wood sides would work just as well.

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/236x/2d/3d/0e/2d3d0e0db22cdddbb0d0992b39fd9e3e.jpg

[Rick Potter]

OK, not good at pics, but I will try.

Be forewarned, this is what it looks like when you live, cook, carpenter, and work all in the same basic room. This is my second kitchen, the first was 15 years ago.

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Edit: Well, I told you I wasn't good at pics. Don't know what happened....I had them all arranged in order to go around the room, and somehow they got mixed.
You can see that the kitchen is basically a room within a larger area, the sink used to be the back wall. We built the cabinets in a sort of bay window configuration to match windows of the new area next to it, giving it a larger feeling. The cabinets on the back side of the bay are mostly 11" deep, with some going to 26" or so. One pic shows one of the 5 sided drawers, 17" on one side and 28" on the other.

There are two large bottom cabinets yet to build, one in a pic, the other where the table tops are. The larger opening next to the table tops is a file cabinet, and anywhere you don't see shelves will probably be drawers, trays, or what ever you want to call them, like the one with the pans in it in one pic. Some of the drawers you see are just temporary. All drawer areas with face frame separations get maple drawers, the rest are behind doors. This is because she wants all drawers but wants the kitchen to look like it doesn't. Notice the bread board, another requirement from the past.

The two tone cabinets were my whim, I wanted to try carving in a relief, but it wouldn't show with the oak grain, so the cab above the stove is maple. The maple raised panel is held on with magnets so it can be removed to get to the stove fan. The strange cab with no floor, where the trash cans go, is a compromise. She wanted the trash cans in the cabs, and I didn't like opening a door to use them. You can see a bit of the pantry we added, which so far just has some junk shelves, it's about 5X10. The wide hallway you see in front of the kitchen leads to the mother in law quarters we built for ourselves. The daughter lives in it now, and will move upstairs when we can't. There is a half built kitchenette in there.

Edit: I really don't understand it, but sometimes the pics are correct (like when I edit), and sometimes they are just in a mixed up order. Anyway, I just realized that a couple that I reference in the text didn't make it. Sorry for any confusion.

[Mark Bolton]

The drawer count makes a bit more sense now ;)

[Rick Potter]

I just realized the above pics do not explain the open kitchen concept very well. As said, the kitchen is within a larger area. These pics show the hallway leading to the new living quarters, the eating area with the bay window I mentioned, and her office area, all of which are sharing the area with the kitchen proper. You can also see that office furniture is on the list.

Hope this explains it better.

RP




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