Pull out shelves and cabinet door clearance

[Gabriel Marusic]

I'm in the middle of building frameless cabinets that will have pull out shelves using the Blum Tandem undermount slides, and I'm a bit concerned about the shelf clearing the cabinet door when it's open. Is there a special type of hinge I need to get for this type of use? Just to be clear I'm not talking about clearing the physical hinge, but the cabinet door itself when it is open.

[Jamie Buxton]

Perhaps you're thinking about Blum's 155 degree hinge. Blum's app notes for it show a "zero protrusion" installation.

But I install pullouts all the time, and don't bother buying those specific hinges. I use normal 120 degree hinges, and space the slides away from the side wall to clear whatever I need to clear. Usually it turns out that I'm trying to get pullout drawers to clear the hinge bodies.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Perhaps you're thinking about Blum's 155 degree hinge. Blum's app notes for it show a "zero protrusion" installation.

But I install pullouts all the time, and don't bother buying those specific hinges. I use normal 120 degree hinges, and space the slides away from the side wall to clear whatever I need to clear. Usually it turns out that I'm trying to get pullout drawers to clear the hinge bodies.

Thanks for the info. The 155 degree hinges seem to fit the bill. I was thinking about spacers for the slides like you mentioned, but was wondering how visible they would be. At least I have both options to consider.

[Jim Becker]

Gabriel, one thing to consider here. If you have a need for pull-outs, consider doing drawers which are much more efficient and easier to use and don't have the clearance issues that come with pull out drawers behind drawers. There's a reason that many kitchen designs have evolved to be mostly drawers...

[Robert Engel]

What Jim said.

I built my kitchen like that when pull outs were the rage. I will be replacing with drawers when we do the reface.

I used spacers and used the shelf pin holes to locate them.

[Mark Bolton]

Keep in mind that the zero protrusion hinges are massive and you will have to allow for the crank of the hinge in the closed and open position. Most people do as mentioned and block-in their pullouts to allow for standard hinges but you do lose that width. You'd be best to do a mockup with a few hinges because some are so close that with very little shim/blocking they will barely clear. We dont use Blum but often times are able to get away without using the zero protrusion.

If you've never used one of the zero protrusion hinges its hard to get your head around how massive they are and while Ive never pushed the limits there is so many parts in one of those hinges I cant imagine they wouldnt sag over time but all the big manufacturers to massive amounts of testing. The other hard part in a pullout situation is you often times have to mount your bottom hinge very high to clear the pullout which puts even more juju on the bottom hinge.

I agree that drawers are a good option if the design allows but these hinges are often used over top of deep fridge cabinets and on uppers.

Thinking a pullout in todays kitchens only applies to base cabs is not really what happens a lot of the time.

[Joe Jensen]

I have to agree with Jim. In our new large kitchen we have mostly drawers in the lowers and a couple places where they put doors for visual effect with drawer behind. In all cases they are double doors and you have to open both drawers to pull out a drawer. I hate that. Wish we had all drawers except under the sinks.

[mreza Salav]

I don't understand the point of having to do two (open the door and pull the shelf/drawer) to access something. As mentioned earlier simply install big drawers.
Our kitchen has almost all drawers in all lower cabinets (except sinks).

[Jim Becker]

I don't understand the point of having to do two (open the door and pull the shelf/drawer) to access something. As mentioned earlier simply install big drawers.
Our kitchen has almost all drawers in all lower cabinets (except sinks).

Same here...except for under the sink and the cabinet where trays go...all drawers. And it's wonderful. One short over two tall.

[Mark Bolton]

I don't understand the point of having to do two (open the door and pull the shelf/drawer) to access something. As mentioned earlier simply install big drawers.
Our kitchen has almost all drawers in all lower cabinets (except sinks).

I think there are a lot of instances where a pull out behind doors make sense. Areas where you have something very tall stored with something shorter, areas that you want to keep modular where you could store a stack of something or something tall like a mixer with adjacent items.

Drawers are great and are taking over the world but they do limit you with regards to what can be put in them and when they get massive and deep the drawer itself can often eat half your slide capacity. Doesnt make a lot of sense when you have a super deep pots and pans drawer that can only handle 50% of the slides capacity because the box, front, and hardware, cut your payload in half. Two doors are carried by the hinges and the pullout tray is typically fairly shallow.

[Paul F Franklin]

As others have said, you will most likely need to block out the slides to clear the hinge bodies.

One disadvantage of drawers over pullouts is the pullouts can be made so position in the box is adjustable. On my office cabinets, the boss (my wife) insisted on movable pullouts even though I wanted drawers. Of course, the bottom pullout will always be as low as possible, but the other one or two are made so they can be repositioned. I did this by making the blocks that block out the slides to clear the hinges with pins that fit into shelf pin holes. So repositioning is as easy as sliding the pullout out, moving the slide block, and reinserting the pullout. Each block has 4 pins, 2 in the front and two in the back so they are stable and can handle heavy loads.

And for those that say no one ever moves a pullout or a shelf in a cabinet....well, you haven't met my wife.

If you're willing to forego movable pullouts, you can avoid blocking out the slides if you use a very shallow pullout on the bottom so it clears the lower hinge body; only then will you have to worry about zero protrusion hinges so the edge of the door doesn't stick into the opening and hit the pullout.

[mreza Salav]

I think there are a lot of instances where a pull out behind doors make sense. Areas where you have something very tall stored with something shorter, areas that you want to keep modular where you could store a stack of something or something tall like a mixer with adjacent items.

Drawers are great and are taking over the world but they do limit you with regards to what can be put in them and when they get massive and deep the drawer itself can often eat half your slide capacity. Doesnt make a lot of sense when you have a super deep pots and pans drawer that can only handle 50% of the slides capacity because the box, front, and hardware, cut your payload in half. Two doors are carried by the hinges and the pullout tray is typically fairly shallow.

Mark, I agree with your first point (there are things you can store in pull-outs but not drawers) but I don't agree with your second reasoning: drawers eat half your slide capacity? The price difference of higher capacity slides is so little it makes sense to go higher capacity. I installed 50kg and 70kg slides on our big (36" wide) drawers that are filled with pots and pans and its no where near the capacity. The added weight of the drawer box and front is a small fraction of the slide capacity.

[Mark Bolton]

We bump to 135lb slides on large drawers but on a very large drawer that can still not be enough. A large/low pots and pans drawer for someone who has a lot of lodge/cast iron or perhaps fills a deep drawer with sundries or cookbooks could easily overwhelm that drawer especially when the a massive drawer box itself can clip a large percentage of the slides capacity.

It of course boils down to common sense but of course you have to consider the fact that if a customer has the capacity, they may store anvils or lead ingots in there.

I have a customer that filled a decent sized wide/deep drawer front to back, top to bottom, with things like flour, sugar, lentils, and so on. All densely packed. I have no idea what the box or the box and contents weighs, but I know for a fact even with heavier undermounts it would be a drawer of concern to me. That said, standard undermounts are carrying it fine and they are good with watching it and paying for heavier slides if it fails. There was no mention with regards to this specific drawer needing to carry that load at the onset.

[Steve Catts]

Jim,
With two deep drawers, do you feel that the overall volume of the cabinet is well used or, now that you are living with it, would you do three drawers below the undercounter drawer? I'm wrestling with this. It seems you can only stack so many skillets or pans into one drawer...

Thoughts???

Same here...except for under the sink and the cabinet where trays go...all drawers. And it's wonderful. One short over two tall.

[Gabriel Marusic]

Gabriel, one thing to consider here. If you have a need for pull-outs, consider doing drawers which are much more efficient and easier to use and don't have the clearance issues that come with pull out drawers behind drawers. There's a reason that many kitchen designs have evolved to be mostly drawers...

Sorry, I should've clarified that it's actually for laundry cabinetry and will have some larger boxes within it holding various detergents and stuff like that. The cabinet itself is almost 80" tall and will only have 3 shelves. Granted the bottom of a cabinet is acting as a shelf as well.

For my kitchen however, I'll definitely be doing drawers as it's way more convenient for me.