I believe 36" is the widest they make drawers. Any wider than that & there isn't enough support & even the strongest material will sag or bow. ANy cabinet lines that I ever worked with only offered 36" drawers.
Good Luck!

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Sorry, just noticed that the thread title says 42 feet, which would be a wide drawer indeed. But think of the storage space!

true, all ready made cabinetry is 36" wide. We have 2 deep 36" holding pots and pans (Brookhaven made, which is moderately priced version of WoodMode, decent tho not top-pest end re: hardware). After 12 years, functions well, tho i am a careful person and conscious of sag threat. It doesnt feel super substantial at 36". So while theres a lot of iron pans Le Creuset in there, many of the heavy fry pans etc are in a hanging rack. EG this would not be substantial feeling for all my p&p. However, if u are working with a custom cab maker, there may be a way. Or you could consider using the 6" excess as an open slot to hold trays, cooling racks or baking sheets? Or a stacked series of narrow pullouts for spices.

I have custom made cabinets with a 42 inch pots and pan drawer. Inside the drawer space is only 38.5 inches. For me it's the perfect size- not too big. I've only had it for a month or two, so I can't comment on sagging.

My cabinetry (installation is next week!) is also custom. My pot drawers are 48" wide. My mother has had the same size (or maybe slightly larger) since the '60's so I knew it was possible. The cabinet maker figured out how to do it and got extra heavy glides for them. I can't remember for sure. I think they don't have the self close, or something, which was far less important to me than the wide drawers. You can fit a lot more in one wide drawer than two smaller ones.

European cabinets make up to 48" drawers. The blum and Hettich hardware support these large spans as far as I know. Many contemporary cabinet makers make their cabinets in this format. I see no issue with it. They usually have a weight limit of about 100lbs per drawer. I usually see a 15" high drawer configuration. They are normally two stack drawers.

Good luck!

I have a cabinet that has double doors on the top and a 42" wide (12" high) drawer on the bottom; it's the only thing about my kitchen that I love. We've had it for almost 6 years and it doesn't sag despite the fact that it's loaded with heavy cookware. When I replace my cabinets, I'll be getting another one just like it!

I hope there's no issue with sagging since like plllog, we also have some 48" drawers. We actually have two 42" and two 48" and a few others that are more than 36 (38" I believe). I'm not sure what our cabinet maker did to prevent sagging, but he definitely knew that we were concerned about that and according to him it shouldn't be a problem.

Plllog - glad to hear your mother hasn't had an issue since the 60's! Good luck with your cabinet installation next week! The installation of ours is seemingly another one of those never-ending things - it's been in process for months :) Of course much of it is due to the cabinet maker working around other things like the floors. We begin the entire floor process AGAIN with another company tomorrow, so keep your fingers crossed! I suppose I'll have something to report by next week, whether good or bad :)

I have traditional, custom inset cabinets, - the widest column of drawers is almost 40 inches. I assume the drawers have reinforced bottoms - they seem to. My biggest issue with them is what to do about the pulls. I like the one I chose installed as a single pull - that would mean ordering different sizes for different width drawers.

Haden, We got side tracked by the big. If the appearance of the wide drawers doesn't suit the appearance you want, you can have them made to look like a double rank of narrower drawers.

As to too small to be useful, I once had a drawer that was about 4" wide inside. Probably 6" outside. I used it for medicines, but it was pretty useless. In the really perfect place, that kind of drawer might be just right for something hard to store like a ladle or skewers, but inevitably it's stuck at the end as filler. A pullout for bottles, or trays, or spices would be more useful in that small a space. For me, 10" (interior) is the narrowest I'd find really useful, and I'd prefer 14".

Traci, thanks for the update! Good floor Karma vibes coming your way. I was wondering...

Geeeee.......
Just when I think I know something, I learn something new. Glad to hear all of you have such large drawers.... I guess there's always a way around every problem, sounds like they've solved the saggy wood one.
That's great! If there's one place to ask the question, it's here. There's always more than one answer also.
What a great site!

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I think you'll find it is too wide and that the major issue will be finding the hardware to hold such a big drawer.

I'll show you what I did with the 48" below my rangetop which might be helpful.

The top shelves are 3" deep and can easily hold short pans although I use them primarily for lid storage. I keep my deep soup and pasta pots in my lazy susan.

I believe the heavy duty hardware for the big pot drawers is made by Blum.

I have 2 36" drawers and I would not want drawers any wider than that. In fact, sometimes I wish I had cut those in half.

Hi.

We'll have two 45 inch drawers in our 8 by 5 island.
No clue yet what we'll do about hardware. We're planning on using them for all of our everyday ware: dishes, bowls, glasses, mugs, etc.

The lower one will temporarily house plastics, sippy cups, kids' ware, etc. That way, it is safe for the babies to pull stuff out & play while I'm working in the kitchen.

Our cabinetmaker planned the drawers and at one point asked if I wanted to split them, but I thought I'd like the supersize drawers. Should I have split them?

I have a freestanding kitchen lower cabinet unit I purchased while awaiting my remodel that has three 47" drawers in it. I love it so much I'm getting some fatty drawers in my remodel. It has Blum selfclose slides (maybe not the best of Blum since it's an Ikea piece) and I've loaded up the two large drawers with some pretty heavy items. The shallow drawer is a little silly--if I were customizing it, I'd have it broken up into two or three. It has the full front builtin drawer pull so no knob placement concerns (but the 15 month-old has just learned to open the flour/sugar/heavy canister stuff drawer from the side so it slides pretty smoothly).

My new drawers will have false double drawer fronts so they don't look so wide. I guess that tells me how many knobs I'll need. My cabinet maker says not to jump in them, but otherwise they should hold up.

The answer to this question is about drawer construction rather than drawer size. If the drawer itself is well constructed (ie - made of sturdier material and properly glued together) and the hardware is also sturdier then the drawer will last. That is probably why plllog's mothers kitchen drawers have lasted so long. As anyone who has ever tried to remove a 60's kitchen knows they were built to last.

I am having 3 sets of 36" drawers in my new kitchen (cabinets coming August 17). We could have gone wider but decided we liked the symmetry better.