I'm sorry for your disappointment. In my current kitchen I have the 12" uppers so can't store many platters (except for long rectangular ones) either. In the new kitchen I have uppers with staggered depths (12", 15", 18" and 25" over the fridge).

At least you will be able to reach the platters easily without having to climb a ladder to get them, or step on your countertop :)

I store mine in the deep divided tray storage area above my fridge. I can pack lots more in vertically, and don't have to lift anything to access them.

We have four 15" deep cabinets & four 12" deep cabinets. Several platters fit fine in the 15" deep cabs that never fit our old 12"....but the 15" ones are only 18" wide so some of our platters don't fit lengthwise...they now reside in the bottom portion of our cabinet above the ovens (24" deep).

Here's a pic of what I did:

Notice that I put the tray dividers on the shelf above the platters & griddle...it's easy enough to grab trays, etc. by the bottom and I can also easily get to the platters, etc.

Buehl ~ What did you use for those tray dividers or did they come with the cabinet? That such a great system.
Maureen in MA

The thing that's astonishing to me is that it's standard to have 12" upper cabinets; this is commonly where dishes are stored; and yet it seems that dishes are currently being manufactured to be larger and larger with dinner often topping out over 11"!

I recently shopped for new dishes, and I was horrified to realize that dinner plate size would actually be an issue. Pfaltzgraff seems especially guilty in this oversized trend, with other manufacturers following suit.

(The fact that most dishes nowadays tend to be either white or earth tones was another issue for me... Whatever happened to pretty colorful dishes???)

I'm with charlikin on the boring white/earth tones on dishes these days! Give me color!

Anyway, I will ended up moving my dishes to a 15" dish hutch to accomodate for larger dishware. Currently my plates just fit in to the standard 12" deep upper, but I'm guessing it's because my lame builder grade oak doesn't have a back to the cabinet!

The reason that dishes are going more and more towards white is that most food looks bad on colorful dishes. Also more and more folks have wanted to make their kitchen "like a restaurant". Notice all the industrial appliances, faucets, lighting, stainless steel countertops, pots and pans...you name it. The restaurant industry knows that the food and its presentation are the most important thing. Tableware is played down for that reason.

My uppers are 15" deep on purpose as my "restaurant" soup plates are 12". Got them from DS! and love them. c

{{gwi:613665}}

the food look great, but I too like colorful dishes. My 15 yr old dishes (that I just retired to top shelf with new dishes for new kitchen) were light pastel colors in a twirled pattern). My new dishes are a deep burgundy, a guess thats a earth turn with a spashes of mustard, deep blue and white. Even though they are dark are colorful, and the food still looks good to me. I also see a big trend for large square plates. I prefere round, I fell they are easier to place in a standard 12" deep cabinet.
As far as my cabinet sizes, love the dividers in buehl, I do have 3 24" deep cabinet, the pantry, above frig, and above microwave, but since they are high up will stick with using a base for deep platters. I don't want to break new dishes yet.

Someone on another thread mentioned that Brookhaven comes with 13" uppers as standard. Makes sense for today's dinnerware.

I guess I like smaller plates - makes the food look bigger. :-)

All of that said, I ended up with large cream-colored dishes with "squarish" (rounded) corners. At least the bowls are round! Food looks lovely on them. :-)

Do you have inset doors? That reduces interior space enough to make a difference with plates.

Trailrunner, you're bad. At least I didn't have to see your kitchen this time, but food? Right before lunch? Argh!

With solid 5\8 back the usable shelf depth in my Mom's uppers is 11 1\8". The company that manufactured her cabinets offers 13" deep cabinets on their custom line so (12 3\8" of usable shelf depth). I recommended my Mom stop using stoneware and switch to Corelle as it takes up less space, is much lighter weight for handling and the basic patterns are often sold in individual pieces if you break a piece. She got a service for 8 of "Square Pure White" (see image below) at a 2 for 1 sale on open stock. She mostly just uses the smaller luncheon plates (8 3\4) for herself. Her sister got burned on a new set of dishes that she couldn't fit into her cupboards so we checked (the dinner plates are 10 1\4 in the Square). She has always had coloured stoneware for everyday (her good dishes are plain white porcelain) and she is much happier with Corelle - boring but practical. Personally I like colour (I have great orange handled Guy Degrenne flatware set that I use for everyday with my boring white Corelle and I have some funky coloured melamine that I break out every now and then).

For trays, I installed these:

Not as squeamish as some about drilling into the new cabs, but I was careful:

Got them at Lee Valley for $5.90 Canadian for a pair, they are made by Sunbeam. We initially bought the Knape and Vogt ones from HD for $13.97 each (needless to say back they went).

sorry fori...I just made bagels...wanna snack ??! c

caryscott, what are your dividers called at Lee Valley, looked for then but only found stainless steel looking ones, not sure if they are the same for US $.?

rtmom2,

I've attached the link. Everything on the site is in Canadian Dollars but I assume they will adjust it when you place the order (downward but you will have shipping charges).

Here is a link that might be useful: Base Cabinet Dividers

Sorry Maureen, just saw this...

I used the $5.99 tray dividers from WalMart...each w/4 slots! There are 3 of them in the photo in my previous post. If you look closely you can see where they were pushed together.

One nice thing about them (other than price!) is that I didn't have to drill holes in my cabinets. They sit pretty solid, especially when they're loaded like mine are!

I have another one under my prep sink for cutting boards and a similar one in another cabinet for my various-sized foil pans. See the top shelf for the foil pans