I'm not sure why accessing stacked pots and pans on a fixed shelf inside a cabinet would be preferable to having them stacked in a drawer. At least the drawer will bring them out of the dark cabinet so you can see and reach them better. I think you'll get a unanimous vote for drawers.

Construct a box from cardboard similar to the size a drawer would be, set at the approx. height off the floor, fill it with your stuff, retreive the bottom piece and you will see the advantage of a roll-out with a 2" front and tapered sides.

Absolutely NO regrets. Zilch. Zero. Nada. I couldn't stand getting on my hands and knees for years to get into base cabs, but thought it was just normal. When I found GW and discovered the idea of all base drawers, I couldn't believe it. A simple fix for the hands and knees experience.

My new kitchen is completely drawers except for the usual cabs--sink bases (you can even do drawers under the sink instead if you wanted), corner susan (again, you could do drawers in the corner instead), and trash pullout which is really a kind of drawer if you think about it. I have one roll out tray (ROT) in my DR because if some real oddball items I need to store there. You're right that IS a paint open 2 doors and then pull out the tray. For me, it's even worse to remember to push the tray in all the way before shutting those 2 doors. I found out the hard way. :(

Stacking isn't a problem if you only stack 2 or maybe 3 high, although 2 is better. More than that and its cumbersome. Stacking is the same if you have a drawer or ROT. Really.

Not with full extension hardware. I see Rockler has glides that go a bit past full extension, too. I'm going to do drawers other than one cab with shelves for the tall lobster type pot. I think you'll get mostly positives here for drawers.

The only regret I have is being talked into doing roll-outs in one cabinet in my last kitchen. Learned my lesson and have no roll-outs this time. Even my everyday dishes (plates and bowls) are stacked in the drawers. There's no need for pegs or any other fancy dividers. The dishes don't slide around, and there's no problem accessing anything out of a drawer.

I didn't do all drawers because I want my dishes in my uppers. I have a really bad lower back and bending over to retrieve and put aways dishes sounds miserable. If I could, I'd have a kitchen full of two shelf uppers! I did question my decision, since I may be the only person on GW who doesn't want a bunch of drawers, but I feel 99.9% confident I made the right decision. We'll see :-)

Drawers drawers drawers. I am the opposite of cbusmomof3. I wish I could have lowers instead of uppers! I hate the uppers in my kitchen and wish I had even more drawers. I didn't do a single door cabinet except for the sink base. Drawers would be especially helpful in a small kitchen because you can push them in a tad of someone needs to get by and you won't have to push in a roll out and then shut the doors and undo all of that once they pass.

Drawers all the way!! You won't be sorry.

I like my dishes in the uppers too, but that didn't preclude doing all drawers for the lowers. You can simply store way more in drawers than you can in cabinets, rollouts or no. And they are so easily accessible.

If you have frameless you can even consider doing 4-bank drawers such that the center two drawers are narrow enough for pans and bowls. Here are our lower 3 drawers (the ones below the top bank) beside our stove, so you can get an idea of how much you can store in them and how easy it is to access things:

2nd from top:

3rd from top:

bottom drawer (the pot on the back rhs is the one I use every night for steaming veggies, so that one doesn't get stacked -- you will quickly get used to your own config that makes sense to you, so stacking a few infrequently used pots or pans is no big deal at all):

I just don't see how it gets any easier than that. I could never fit all that stuff into a cabinet, no way, no how.

And if you have a big dog the best thing you can use a drawer for is his kibble! We had one of our lowers steel-lined to fit a big 40 lb bag of dog food. Best thing ever, it's made our lives so much easier with no big mess around the kibble bag any longer:

There are just so many potential uses for your drawers that you could never do otherwise. Give in to your husband on almost anything else, but you have to fight for this one! :-)

In my last kit I did mostly drawers and 3 cabs with pullouts. I regretted it after realizing how much more handy drawers are. In my present home I did all drawers except the sink and I am much happier.

We refinished and slightly re-configured our existing cabinets. Part of that was converting the lower cabinets with doors to drawers on each side of the range. For some reason, we didn't think to do any of the others.

I absolutely love them! Every time I have to contort myself to get something out of the lower cabinets, I mentally kick myself for not putting in more drawers. We planned on putting in rollouts in some of them, but now I know it won't be quite as nice as the drawers are. I wouldn't have converted everything, because I have a few items that would be awkward in a drawer, but having most of the lowers be drawers would have been much more convenient.

You need to reveiw what you personally have to store in your kitchen and figure out how best to store it.

My kitchen was completed last week and I'm slowly putting things back and figuring out where everything should go. I have a galley kitchen but also redid the adjacent laundry room. I put a 36" wide pantry in there floor to ceiling. The bottom 2/3 are roll out trays, but as I am working with them I now wish I had done drawers on the lower half instead. I did all drawers in the kitchen except the sink base (which has a roll out) and a 12" cab with dividers for cookie sheets. I didn't even think about it at the time we ordered the cabinets....I just stated i wanted a pantry and I think this set up is standard. It is light years better than what I had, but I think drawers are more practical.

We are doing all drawers except for a few with doors for storage of large items. Drawers are the way to go!

Drawers, drawers, drawers. I almost start to cry at the thought of ever having to have lower cabinets again. The getting down on hands and knees to get something out from the back of the cabinet, the necessity of the flashlight to check to see if the small lid is back in the corner, the dragging out of the whole pile of frypans to get the one second from the bottom and then putting them all back and repeating when putting said frypan away after use. Please find a way to win this one. You will thank us.

I'm also on board with drawers. We had retro-fitted roll-outs in the old kitchen, which was better than fixed shelf cabinets, but not nearly as nice as drawers. I even put my dishes in a 2nd drawer down just opposite the dishwasher:

(It does extend all the way out, I just didn't pull it all the way out when I took the picture.) This makes all the dishes right about hip height and so easy to unload the DW. The silverware is in the shallower top drawer above the dish drawer.

Our exception is a full height pantry where the bottom section (shoulder height down) has roll-outs. I like that in the pantry because I can eyeball the entire contents at a glance.

Drawers! The only cabinet in my kitchen that I regret is the sole cab w/doors & 2 ROTS (roll out tray shelves)!

When ordering, I remembered to tell my KD all drawers (or pullouts with doors attached to drawers like a trash pullout), but I forgot to check the cabinet that was turned to face outside the kitchen. It is our "pet center" and I had meant to order it like a trash pullout with the lower "drawer" for the dog food & treat cans. Oh well!

One thing w/ROTS...you must remember to wait until the ROTS is completely closed before closing the doors - my doors on that sole ROTS cab are nicked on the inside from the many times we've not been careful or patient enough to wait to close the doors.

Here is a link that might be useful: Drawer storage in Buehl's kitchen

You don't stack or nest the pots. What you do is lay the pots on their sides. Have dividers built for the drawers either parallel to the front or side. Divide the drawer into, say, three sections, front to back. Nobody wants to dig pots that are nested or stacked. This is the efficient way!!!

The first part of the winning equation is drawers.

The second part is dividers.

Thank you, especially for your photos! We had already decided to get rollouts in all of the cabinets but I think the drawers will be much more convenient in our tight space. DH is nearly convinced, too. I'm going to ask the KD about the possibility of getting drawers with lower sides to facilitate seeing and retrieving stacked items. Great idea to put pots and pans on their sides. I love solving puzzles, and optimizing the layout of the stuff in the drawers will be a good one. Will keep you posted on our progress, eventually with some photos. In the meantime, would love to see more of your interior arrangements. Thanks again.

until recently most of us didn't know/think there was an option other than the regular 'ol cabinet doors w/shelves inside! ugh!

drawers! you won't regret it.

here are a few I've saved from GW posters for ideas when it comes time to change my base cabs to drawers. I have a bad back and having drawers will be much, much easier on me. If I get down on my knees to get something in the back shelf I'm very likely not to be able to get back up.
I plan to use drawers for my everyday dishes/mugs. It's harder on me to reach up than slide a drawer out.

canned goods can go into drawers also:

Great photos - thanks!

I have some of both, and it's practical reasons. Where I have doors, I have pullouts too. Needed doors under the sink and have one pullout there, and then I have doors under the cooktop because I store large pots on one side and have a two level pullout on the other side. It's also directly across from the sink so there is symmetry in the look.

I guess you could say I have drawers except where I have very specific storage needs that made them not the best choice. DH wasn't thrilled as he had to make all those drawers, but we both love having them.

Definitely the best decision I made is to do all drawers.
I keep pots and pans in one and bowls, colanders (plastic and ceramic) in another. I have one which the kids can access with small plastic bowls and cups. And one for all the tupperware and lids.

I used to keep all this stuff in lower cabinets in my old kitchen. I was always, always hard to find stuff or organize stuff. Now it is so easy with full-extension drawers. The drawers also help contain stuff...I can imagine roll-outs being difficult because things have to be stacked and balanced. With drawers, things can rest against the side of the drawer and stay put when you open the drawer.

take a look at taggie's thread revealing her new kitchen on p1. She has some upper doors open to show the inside use.

and from the outside on the lower? drawers, drawers, drawers! lol!

i only have a few of doors (with roll out trays) in my large kitchen and i still wish i had more drawers. the doors are useless.

All drawers in the kitchen has made life easier. Zero regrets.

All drawers. Love them!

My KD said doors with roll-outs were about the same price as drawers, for what that's worth, but I figured why have to open doors, then pull out shelves, when you can just pull out a drawer? On top of that the pull-outs themselves just reduce the interior space available since the pull-outs themselves take up space. In our remodel in progress we're doing all drawers. It seems to be a no-brainer.

Another vote for drawers! Love all my drawers. The only lowers that aren't drawers are my sink cabinet, my 36" inch pantry cabinet (Kraftmaid), which has pullouts, and my super susan in the corner. Oh, and a 9 inch cookie sheet space with a door. You won't regret drawers---very versatile!

When first planning our remodel I went to talk to one store manager who commented that I had way too many drawers. "Nobody puts that many drawers in." He didn't get my business needless to say!