Whatever it takes to do this, pay the money and do it! Mine are too tall. It's back to the kitchen table for me. I don't mind but here's this brand new kitchen and the counters are wrong. If I would have known, I would have brainstormed this with my carpenter. Maybe the counter could have been made with something as strong but not as thick; or trimmed even a half inch, and an ich shaved off the toe kick, there must have been something we could have done. A platform seems like too much work.

Toe kicks are usually 4"-6" right? Why not use the stock cab but put it on a 2x4 frame. Then just rip the toe kick down to the 2" height to cover the frame. That way you still have standard depth cabs.

Is the baking center by itself or connected to counters that will be higher? A shorter toekick could look odd, and 2 inches might not be enough to fit shoes under without scraping the toes?

Have you checked into custom cabinets, at least for that section?

We had thought about putting it on a 2x4, but thought it would look odd because it will be connected to counters that are higher. My husband also thought about doing this section in a different finish, so we talked about having that cabinet custom made. And maybe the island too, so it is not the only one in the kitchen. We will be looking into custom cabinets for the whole kitchen.

Someone -- either plllog or buehl I think, noted that it was cheaper to rise *herself* than lower the counters for baking. She keeps 'cooking clogs', apparently, for the purpose.

Not sure if your needs are infrequent enough for this to work. I opted for custom cabinets, available in this huge market where I live. But I'm nearly positive that Omega, available at HD I think, had lower cabinets available as stock items. I'm not sure how it was priced out, perhaps as office cabinet stacks? It can be done for sure -- I think 3 people gave me stock quotes with no trouble. I asked for 31" kneeding/baking counter.

Good luck! Maybe you just need to talk with someone else at HD -- oh whoops, Lowe's

What about getting a normal cabinet (the kind with a drawer across the top) and then just cut the drawer section completely off? It's a difference of like 6" though so it's a big drop.

In the past I've rasied the whole cabinet run with 2x4s beneath and then used a normal cabinet missing the drawer for a 'lowered' section for baking.

That gives you higher ctops than normal by about 2" and a lowered pastry sectionby about 4".

I love my lowered cooktop area but even more I love my raised sink area!

LOL! It's me who has the baking clogs--they have a high sole, not super high heels, that is, one isn't perched on the balls of one's feet and angled forward like with high heels (good for dancing, not for exerting shoulder pressure), just out of contact with minor heaves in the sidewalk which could make for broken legs. :) I already had the too tall for street safety clogs, but I only need them for rolling stiff doughs. Crocs are good enough for kneading and soft dough, and comfier.

I really was trying to fit a baking counter but couldn't figure out a good place for it that wouldn't be impossible to clean or create other problems. I put stacks of fabric on my table and rolled it with my favorite rolling pin to find the ideal height for exerting shoulder pressure (for me it's 33"). My island is 38", which is my ideal prep height, and my perimeter is 36.5". When I realized I only needed to be raised 3.5" to roll or knead in my baking area, I realized how much simpler it would be to just raise my shoulders. And I can't wear the danged clogs anyway, no matter how cute they are. :)

I was going to suggest cutting the drawer off the top too.. That sounds like a fantastic idea! I don't think I'd like to remove the toe kick.. it's one of those "don't know what you've got til its gone" things. We removed the toe-kick on our bathroom vanity because the thing was monstrous. I am always kicking it!!

I just asked in another thread if it would be possible to turn the toe kick into a pull out platform. Same idea as the drawers, but stable enough to stand on. Thoughts? I am VERY short, so this is something we are thinking about in our kitchen, but DH is 6', so the standard height counters are perfect for him. Does anyone know if this is even possible?

Here is a link that might be useful: other thread

Yup, toekick as platform is possible -- you just turn the toekick into, essentially, a drawer, which you fill up. So you'll be paying for the gliding hardware. And a custom cabinet maker, probably. Try searching on toekick drawer - there have been threads and photos about em. Cutest things ever.

pull-out breadboard? Very comfy to work at it because you can get your whole lower self under it or move around it if necessary. More than one person can stand around one if it's large enough--nice for decorating holiday baking with kids. Ours is positioned 2 inches below countertop. Not table height, though, if you roll out dough at that height.

I've always been afraid of pull-out steps in the toekick. I KNOW I'd back off or go off sideways and break or twist an ankle.

Taking off the drawer might work...There would be different ways to build it up from there to the height you want. It could look cool with a really thick butcherblock, or perhaps more economically, something that appeared to be a really thick bb.

florantha... can you post a picture of that? does it have some kind of heavy duty drawer glide so you can press down without worrying about it breaking? thanks!

I'm in the process of ordering Decora cabinets for my studio. I can't find the exact height measurements of the base cabinets at the moment, but they're low. I have a 5 foot long desk area with 2 drawers that is obviously desk height and then on either side of that are cabinets that will come up an inch or two higher. They are going to be made from 24"deep wall cabinets. The carpenter is going to fashion the kick plate when he installs them. The designer at the store and the carpenter didn't think this was a big deal. I'm not sure if the whole line of Decora is semi-custom or just these particular cabinets.

When I was picturing my desktop, I wondered if you had room in your kitchen for a built in desk, because that height would be perfect for kneading your bread. Maybe there's a stock cabinet line that makes a desk for a kitchen.

Our new kitchen cabinets were just installed this week (we are just waiting on the granite to be installed now), and we have a lowered baking counter... and I think I am going to love it. We didn't really plan it this way, but since the house had corner windows that were lowered, we needed to find a way to fit the countertops under them. Our cabinet guy told us about the baking counter, and I couldn't be more happy we went with that! We ordered "stock" cabinets from him, and he's customized them all to fit our needs. He cut the drawer off the top of the cabinet for the baking center, and added trim work to make it all match. We had discussed possibly cutting down the toe-kick, but he said it would look as though we had made a mistake... which wasn't quite the look we were going for LOL. Let me know if you'd like anymore information about how we went about doing this!

I had an entire island in the past kitchen that was 34" high.

You'd need customized cabinets for the section and, depending on design, need to pay attention to finished sides.

But counter height can be adjusted to the height of the baker. I'm 5'7" so 34" was perfect for me.

How about an island for baking made from back-to-back vanity cabinets? Keeping the toe-kick is important for safety - at least at my house. Can you imagine kicking a gout injured toe into a cabinet? OUCH.

I was looking into this a few months ago. I think it's easier to cut from the top rather than mess with dropping the toe kicks etc. Most baking counters are around 30" give or take. Most top drawers are between 6" and 7" tall. The company that made my cabinets is Panda, the drawers are 7 1/4". You can remove the top drawer from a drawer stack configuration or a cabinet configuration and cut down the cabinet from the top. Or some cabinet manufacturers make a 24" tall 24" deep wall cabinet in the width you want/need. Most are 30" or 36" wide to go over a fridge. Basically you need 24" of height and allow 4" for toe kicks. With a wall shelf, you can make a base out of 2x4's or put 4" decorative legs on it. I'm not sure if the off-the-shelf cabinets from Lowes or Home Depot offer this configuration, I haven't checked. I DO know that Ikea makes this size wall cabinet. They're modular, so you can do the 2 doors or 2 deeper drawers or a stack of 4 shallow drawers, Ikea's are 6" hight. Whatever configuration you can get to fit 24" high.

HTH!

We did that, but not for baking. Mine was for my kids to be able to reach the counter to make sandwiches, etc. I had to do so many customizations to regular Kraft Maid, etc, that I ended up going with custom cabinets, and it was thousands cheaper. But I got exactly what I wanted.

And my mother in law did something similar... I think she might have used vanity cabinets. She combined hers with other cabinets on her island. The drop down side was butcher block.

I would like to chime in here. I was a professional bread baker for 10 years at Zingerman's in Ann Arbor Michigan. We averaged about 8,000 loaves per day all shaped by hand. Here is my opinion.
I believe the best height for kneading bread is regular counter height. We did many experiments to determine this and even hired an industrial engineer when we expanded and updated the bakery. Lower counter heights result in stress on the back. Another interesting fact is that don't really require different counter heights. If you are short, stand next to someone taller with both of your arms dangling and notice that your fingers usually hang close to the same height from the floor.
We had a Japanese lady who was about 4'11" and a very tall man at 6'5". Even though they are 1'6" different in height, their distance between the tips of their fingers and the floor was only about an inch. (taller people have longer arms)

I'm a newbie here so hopefully I'm doing this correctly. I don' t know how to post links yet but figuring it out it you need a picture of my cabinet layout. I'm in the process of remodeling our kitchen and I've chosen to go totally custom. Have a really small kitchen so I need to be as efficient as possible. I'm 4'10" and for years I would drag my cutting boards, KA mixers and all supplies to the kitchen table to work. It would really bother my arms and shoulders to work for extended periods of time. I also wear platform type shoes(like plllog!) to work comfortably in my kitchen. And what ribs1 says maybe be true for some but standing next to my 5'10" son my arms are 6" shorter! It's about proportion! I'm a massage therapist and Rolfer by day, so body position and ergonomics are my specialty. The difference in working at a 36" counter versus a 30" counter is that I have to raise my arms and my elbows to work on the 36" counter. On the 30" counter, my arms rest beside my body and my elbows are at a 90 degree angle which is ergonomically correct and therefore more comfortable for me. It also enables me to put my weight into my arms when I'm cutting or pressing down for rolling out dough. My plan is to have a 30" height, 45" length countertop to the left of my cook top. It has a pullout trashcan and 2 deep drawers and I'm looking for a walnut cutting board countertop. This will hold my KA mixer for mixing and be my prep(cutting) area as well.

I think, before committing to a particular counter height, you should experiment to find the right height for you.

Raise yourself up on phone books or bricks to simulate different heights, and knead dough, and not for 1 minute - live with it for a while, make plenty of bread, long enough to feel it in your back if it is too low, or to in your arms/shoulders if it is too high.

(If after a couple of months you haven't kneaded enough dough to thoroughly test a few different heights, that could suggest you don't actually need a special dough-kneading countertop . . .)