Question about adding cabinets to breakfast nook alcove

11 years ago

1954-built, roughly 9'4 x 11'7 kitchen originally designed with breakfast nook, utilizing ~71"w x 18"d alcove. Some previous owner put a single ~25"w x ~17"d, cobbled-together base cabinet in the alcove with a full width (71") countertop.

I am considering expanding upon that alcove modification by installing a full row of base and wall cab's in the alcove along with new countertop. What do you think about having the upper and base cab's the same depth. With countertop depth same as alcove depth, and normal overhang, I am looking at 16-17"ish deep base cab's. Standing at the alcove and pretending same depth upper and lower cabs are in place, I cannot envision any problems.

Pre-addressing anticipated comments; I want more cabinet space and do not care about using the kitchen for anything but food prep, storage, cooking, and cleaning. Also "non-standard" cab depths are not a problem because I (& probably my father) will be building them. Finally, due to the design of the kitchen, I do not want cab's or countertop sticking out of the alcove.

Thanks in advance.

Featured Answer

pps7

11 years ago

I think it will look great and add a lot of usable storage. I googled built in hutch and found that the ones with glass uppers looked the best. Also if the uppers are the same depth, I think you can just skip the countertop. Symmetry will be very important in your design.

Glass upper. No countertop.

The few pictures I did find with countertops, the uppers seemed to be 3" shallower than the bottom. Again, the uppers had glass fronts.

Good luck!

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Comments (6)

herbflavor
11 years ago
not sure "standing" at the alcove and"pretending" qualifies for a using assessment. If the upper wall cabinets are situated higher and the counter area is more to set things aside/out of the way/seldom used or just items for display,then consider it. Other option is door voided cab [with matching interior] so when opening any door you won't have to move 2 or 3 steps back so as not to bang your head,or get the door open actually, even if you don't mind some banging of the head. Open shelves with brackets?
maggieq
11 years ago
We did that in a townhouse kitchen reno....upper and lower the same depth. One call was 15 in deep and one wall was 18 in deep. Loved it, storage was awesome.
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CEFreeman
11 years ago
I forgot about this.
In my rental, before it was a rental, on the kitchen side of a pass thru my DH put wall cabinets with a counter top on them. It was a small kitchen, so that extra storage was fabulous. He also put 12" cabs over the pass thru. It was great.

I like things like that. I've made a bank of floor to ceiling cabs in both my dining room and laundry room. 12" deep (My MBR tansu is 18" deep) and the storage is fantastic.

I wish I'd considered glass on the uper cabs. What am I saying! If I want glass, I'll just change it to glass!
hit4show
Original Author
11 years ago
Thanks for the comments.

Herbflavor, your post prompted decision to do a simple cardboard mock-up. I should have done that already.

I should have added in the OP that I very much want to keep the extra counter space that the alcove counter provides.

I have thought about glass doors. Have been in a higher end kitchen that had an area of glass doors + glass shelves + interior puck lighting. When filled with the owner's fine china & etc, it looked amazing. I am afraid it would look out of place in my modest home, though. Not certain.

This post was edited by hit4show on Sun, Feb 3, 13 at 14:25
Artichokey
11 years ago
If the upper cabinets run the full width of the nook, I can't picture how the countertop would be useable as a work surface without hitting your head. It might help to see a drawing if you have a mental image of how it would be possible. I wonder if something like this would work, with cabinets on both sides and a counter in the middle?

Here is a link that might be useful: Basement Desk