Our custom-built (in 1952 by the original owners - due to be replaced this year) kitchen has a 9" base (with drawer) on either side of the sink. A full height would be more useful (we can only use the bottom for the trays - the top shelf holds my mini-cutting boards...it's too short for anything else).

Mine holds several cookie sheets, jelly roll pans, cutting boards, and cooling racks. It's not wide enough for roasting pans, but a 12" width plus full height would probably do it.

But wait! What about over the fridge or oven cabinet (if you have one)? Unless you're super tall, those cabinets are ONLY good for tray storage. If you've got space there, it seems like a waste to put trays in a lower cabinet.

(Keep in mind everything I write is filtered through my "small kitchen brain". If you've got plenty of space, of course lower storage is better than over-the-fridge storage.)

Our tray storage is over the ovens. It's 30" wide and holds a ton. I'm vertically challenged, so I just got a little shaker style stepstool which is just the right height.

Small kitchen brain here too :-)

I do like the look of putting these things above the fridge, but we opted to turn those cabinets into drawers  making this usually inaccessible area easy to access with lots of extra storage space (we keep all our alcohol and mixers up there). So where to put the trays? I have a pantry cupboard where the shelves pull out for easy access. Just below the bottom shelf (which is really hip height since the bottom of this cabinet is 2 deep drawers)  is a void large enough to slide my trays and my food vacuum sealer into. I also discovered there is untapped space below my laze Susan that holds some cooling racks for me.

My trays, cookie sheets, cutting boards are located in a 9'' base cabinet with a small drawer above it. It's the same arrangement I had for decades and it worked for me. The cabinet above my refridgerator has serving bowls and platters, etc. that I only use when we are entertaining. I need DH or a stool to reach inside. Below my range is a drawer that I keep pyrex and ceramic bakers, and brownie and cake pans, etc. These are the items I use most of the time.

Not mine but I found this recently. It may be what you're looking for -- last pic scroll down.

Here is a link that might be useful: Over oven storage

Mine was like mbarstow, but 12" base with drawer that came with a shelf, but we just didn't install it. It fit a lot of stuff, but in two layers - and I had to rummage in order to get to the back stuff. I also had my roasting pans nested, which is a real PITA - I got used to, but my mom always #!@$# when she tried to get them in or out. I think a full height cabinet would be a waste of space as you can't really put trays/pans on top of pans. (unless you got the shelf and made a cubby in the bottom?)

In my new kitchen, they will again be in a 12" base with drawer, but I'm having contractor modify it with an idea I stole from here:

Except that I'm not going to have the divider (why?). This will allow me to get to the back layer of trays and pans.

HTH,

Lynne

Over the frig cabinet. You don't even have to be tall to use it, because you only need to grab the bottom corner of the tray. I actually put the shelf on the lowest pegs to have oversized horizontal tray storage and then put the tray dividers on the shelf, because I'm average height with long monkey arms and can reach that extra step higher.

We have a 12" wide cab with a drawer above--there would have been a ton of wasted space without that drawer. As you can see below, we use ours to store cookie sheets/sheet pans, cooling racks, and our pizza stone.

Mine is above my ovens as well. To pull a tray out, you only need to reach the bottom corner; you don't need to reach the top. So, I opted to put the shelf only a few inches above the floor of the cabinet and then put my tray dividers on the shelf. This allowed me to use the bottom section for platters & griddle. The trays are still accessible and I don't have any wasted space on top.

Also, I've linked a thread from 2007 discussing almost the exact same question.

Here is a link that might be useful: Thread: tray cabinets - top 1/2 wasted space

Buehl  Great idea and photo. Thanks for sharing. :-)

I believe Buehl is taller than I am--that sure wouldn't work for me! I'll have to put the dividers on the very bottom of that oven cabinet and not care (or know) what my spouse does with the top!

Currently I have those items loosely stacked in a floating tipsy mass above the oven. It's quite dangerous. But it's low enough for me to reach the front bottoms of items if they were neatly "filed" away.

I use a 12 inch base cabinet with a drawer on top - there are two wooden vertical dividers in it. The drawer above is great for all my rubber spatulas and other baking tools (cookie presses, icing colors, etc.) It is plenty of room for my cookie sheets/drying racks. We also use above the fridge for roasting pans, roasting racks, muffin tins, etc. We have some metal dividers there. Having two different areas (one baking & one roasting) really works well for us.

Plllog's mother's solution looks great. Having lots of dividers is really helpful for us, or everything gets caught on everything else (especially the cookie cooling racks). Good luck finding what works for you!

Over Refrigerator. What we really like about ours is the dividers are adjustable, allowing us to store our wide griddle easily.

Thank you all for sharing! Too bad I am planning for only
one kitchen because I love all of your ideas :)

Plllog, are you reproducing your mom's cabinet exactly like it is or are you getting sliding shelves?

Cat_mom, may I ask what size are your large baking trays in this cabinet?

question to buehl, nhbaskets and all others with the above-fridge or above-oven storage: how deep are these cabinets, same as the fridge/oven or shallower?

Anna,

Mine will be just like my mother's in the picture. The shelves are 3/8" plywood, and fit in slots. They do pull out!! They don't have rollers, but don't need them. I wouldn't put anything tiny in here. There's better storage for tiny things, like a drawer. I've never had anything fall off the back or anything like that, and most of the time don't bother pulling out shelves. It's easy to just slide out what I need. The one I move most is the one with the kitchen placemats--I slide that out to put clean ones away neatly on the stack.

plllg - that's great! adding to my idea file. i don't have that much 'stuff' but maybe just having 4 of those for flat things and a space below for bigger things. or having a shallow drawer (with big front on it) and a few shallow pullout drawer 'inside' of it.

annab6--they are 1/2 sheet pans; I don't know if full sheets would fit or not, but I could always measure for you later if you'd like--let me know. Our range (Wolf AG) couldn't take full pans anyway (whether or not I could store them!).

FWIW, the cab came with two dividers, but they took up way too much space inside that 12" wide cabinet, so the installer removed one, and moved the pegs for the divider to the center of the space. We also think a thinner divider would do the job just a well (as the thick one in there now), and would consider having one made if I find I need more storage space sometime in the future.

annab6...my oven cabinet is all one cabinet...just partitioned into a cabinet on top, opening for the ovens, and then a drawer on the bottom. The entire cabinet is 24" deep, so my tray space is as well.

Two things about that:

(1) The 24" depth allowed me to store my platters lengthwise and my cookie sheets the same way. (Notice the cookie sheets, etc. are on their sides & the platters are the "long way" in...no horizontal storage needed...I can fit a lot more this way. Did that make sense? BTW...my longest cookie sheet is 19".)

(2) Behind the shorter items, there is some empty space...but I've been considering putting some seldom-used items there...for some reason empty space just seems "wrong"! (Probably b/c in my old kitchen I had so little space that I couldn't afford to have any empty space!)