Will this work? What's Your Thoughts?

[Richard McComas]

I’m building a small pantry unit (17 inch wide, center cabinet with all the slides) the customer basically wanted a series of pullout shelve with low lip on the edges. The customer specified all the spacing and clearances between pullouts and wants all the pullout shelves to pullout at the same time so she can view all the contents simultaneously. My plan is to build all the pullouts and attach them to one common door. When you pull the full-length door all the pullouts rollout at once.
Do you think this I a viable plan?


<img src="http://www.fototime.com/5C0FA336B9052F4/standard.jpg" border=0>

[Chris Knight]

That' s sized for a hell of a lot of panties!

Chris

[Richard McComas]

Originally posted by Chris Knight
That' s sized for a hell of a lot of panties!

Chris

Ha Ha looks like I now get to learn how to use the on-line edit function.

[Jim Izat]

Will there be a low lip on both the front and the back of each shelf? (Looking at them from the side when the entire unit is pulled out.

Jim Izat

[Dennis McHenry,DDS]

I am building a similar pantry, however, my shelves will all be part of one unit with a bottom and top slide rather than each with its own slide. This will essentially be a box within a box with the front of the shelves (solid piece from top to bottom) attached to the cherry raised panel door. If I interpret your plan correctly, it appears that each shelf has its own slide which might cause allignment problems, i.e. binding.
Hope this gives you another idea.
Dennis

[Howard Barlow]

Might work, but as Dennis said, alignment may be a problem. I would have used the hardware that is designed for that. The one that mounts top and bottom, I mean. Otherwise, it looks good, panties or not.

[Ted Shrader]

Richard -

As the others have said, alignment could be a problem.

Also if all those pull out shelves are full of canned goods, there will be significant weight. The unit will be anchored to the wall, so tipping probably won't be a concern. However, it might be kind of hard to pull all those shelves out at once if they are fully loaded. Lot of inertia there. What about a top and a bottom unit?

Ted

[Dave Hammelef]

Its not clear from your comments if the home owner wants them all come off a single door or not. I would definetly talk to them about it. Since with the bottom slides so close you are building what they want I would not stop now. I think alignment issues could get you. I personally like the singel pantry pull design that rockler sells. Just has tracks on the top and bottom, seems much simpler.

Dave

[Richard McComas]

Originally posted by Dave Hammelef
Its not clear from your comments if the home owner wants them all come off a single door or not. I would definetly talk to them about it. Since with the bottom slides so close you are building what they want I would not stop now. I think alignment issues could get you. I personally like the single pantry pull design that rockler sells. Just has tracks on the top and bottom, seems much simpler.

Dave

Yes the home owner wants all of them attached to a single door, she has also specified the exact distance between the pullouts. I have discussed this Rockler type pantry hardware and have let them read all the feedback I'm getting from the sawmill and two other forums. They sill want to try doing this way.

[Lars Thomas]

If that pantry is anything like mine, there could be 100 lbs (or more) of 'stuff' in there. That would make the door difficult to open and put considerable stress on the hinges.

I would think that it would be BETTER to have the shelves open individually so you can reach the stuff in the back. The purpose of the shelves is to allow access to the contents in the rear of the cabinet. Otherwise the stuff in back be just as difficult to reach as it is with fix shelves.

Me thinks you (and client) should reconsider.

[Howard Barlow]

Rockler, and others, have this hardware:

http://www.rockler.com/ecom7/showdet...ID=42&CATID=10

[Marc Wittman]

I would recommend something similar to what Howard has shown. I just did this for my mom in her kitchen, similar situation to yours. Rather than a bunch of sliding shelves, build one shelving unit that slides in and out. I bought the hardware I used from Lee Valley. They sell a unit that the shelving sits on with a slide built in, they also sell a companion top mounted slide, mainly just for alignment. Worked out well for me, the only concern might be weight.

Good luck.

[Rob Russell]

Richard,

Looking at your picture of a full-height pantry, a couple of things come to mind.

<ol><li>With 17" wide drawers, it's going to be a real PITA to get at the backside of each drawer if all the drawers pull out at the same time. If your picture shows the installed locations of hte cabinets, the only real access to the drawers is from the left side. To put stuff on the back of any drawer, she has to unload the stuff from that left side just to get at it. Face it - cans are going to be stacked.</li>
<li>Weight of that unit, loaded, is going to be a LOT to pull out. Get it started and it's gonna slam against the drawer slide stops. 8 drawers, even at only 50 lbs. average with canned goods is 400lbs smacking against those stops.</li></ol>

I'd really suggest your customer reconsider and have the drawers pull out individually. She can still pull out "like contents" drawers at the same time. If, for some reason, she want them all out at the same time - she can pull them all out. My guess is that wouldn't happen too often.

Rob