gursk, I can't help you with your question, but just wanted to let you know that for the several months I've been reading along in the kitchen forum, this is my favorite subject line so far : ).

I'll be reading along with interest because I have much the same problem in my current kitchen, and while I usually tend to go with function over form, am worried that aesthetics might win out in planning the new kitchen...

Becky

Thanks Becky - thought the "topless" part might be a good attention-getter ;).

Unfortunately, you can't just compare frontage to frontage. The old kitchen might have the little spot between the mixing bowls and the canning pot where all the little containers fit perfectly, but a different sized shelf/drawer might not have that spot.

The wisdom here is to take this opportunity to relieve yourself of those things that you really don't need. Spending $650 on a cabinet to hold a bowl that you couldn't get 65 cents for at a garage sale and that you never use anyway is pointless.

When my new kitchen was done I bought a bunch of new pots, bowls and gadgets that I'd put off. I was glad that I put in a lot of storage, not just barely enough for what I already had.

I'm not saying not to go topless. Just that if you also want to abandon the Tetris you should make sure you really are putting in more than enough storage. The current idea of kitchen organization is to have all drawers in the lowers unless you have reason to think you might need to alter the height for a particular kind of storage, at which point Roll Out Tray Shelves in the cabinets are preferred (i.e., drawers behind doors which you can move up or down at some point if necessary).

My advice is to always get the biggest possible drawers, even if that means getting extra strong drawer bottoms and glides. That gives you more opportunities to play Tetris, which is actually a good thing, at least on the bottom layer or two. If you're not good at spatial geometry, that is, if you can't imagine all your stuff in the new drawers (or aren't good at packing a suitcase or cooler, or getting stuff to fit in your car), then your best bet is to pull everything out and start sorting now. Actually measure the volume of everything you want to put in as stacks of bowls, skillets, or whatever, the way you want to store them. Then you'll be able to see what will fit and how high your drawers need to be, and all of that.

Thenks pillog.

I guess hoping for apples to apples was too much. I've already started the kitchen purge to figure out what I really do need.
I just finished playing paper kitchens to test this out for the pantry plan - arranging pieces of paper on graph paper (my DH now thinks I have OCD) to see how the essentials fit. My conclusion - they don't.

20 kitchen layouts behind us & we still don't have one that works.

Horny pendants and topless kitchens! What is GW coming to ?? :)

The graph paper arranging is a great way to plan!

If you're having that much trouble, why don't you post your best plan or two here in new thread and see if we can provide any good input.

Hi, Gursk. A duh point, but just to make sure it's on the table, uppers are shallower. Using volume measurement will keep that in account.

So, how many cubic top-shelf feet equal 1 cubic lower drawer foot? Clue: The answer will vary according to user height, plus a bunch of other stuff probably. Like what % of possessions are once-a-year items (the higher this #, the smaller the ratio).

How far does a cubic foot of outside (of kitchen) storage have to be before it's no longer more desirable than pulling out and climbing on a stool to get to upper shelves?

I've forgotten my calculus, unfortunately, because all these equations seem to have variables sliding around at different rates. Actually, it's fortunately, because I haven't even begun to list all the variables that would come into play, much less tried to quantify.

I actually used the finger-counting method. I.e., pull out everything you want to have in your new kitchen and then decide where you'd want to have it. My kitchen is topless, BTW, and my once-a-years are in a closet in the basement. :)

I think that if your square footage is that much more, approx 375%, and your linear footage is 50% more, then you will have room to fit in everything you have now with room to spare.
If you try topless and it does not work, you can always add uppers to the kitchen. Most of us anti-upperitis sufferers have shelves in our plans, so we are not truly topless.

I have to admit as I lay in bed at night, I try to picture difference scenarios. I often do the "where will I put things" exercise in my head and I come up with differing answers. I think much of it can be pre-planned, but some will have to be decided once the real kitchen is in and the real belongings are put away. I expect to adjust a few times as we go. I know I will have more cabinet space and more counter space (impossible to not have more of both, lol).

As you know, here on GW we are big fans of zones. There is the prep zone, baking zone, cleanup zone, landing space for fridge zone, setting the table zone, etc... If you have clear areas in your kitchen for the different tasks, you will find it easier to map out where to put what.

I bet there is not a person here who has not taken out their tape measure countless times to check and re-check the difference between their old kitchen and new plan. You are normal in this forum to be tko and overthinking things.

Have you had a chance to read the "Read Me" thread? It has a write-up discussing "Planning for Storage" that I think you'll find very useful. As others have said, it's not just volume of storage, it's also what type of storage you have, what configuration you have, and where things need to be stored.

I've linked the latest "Read Me" thread below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Read Me If You're New To GW Kitchens!

Oh, what a convoluted way they computing this! Mixing units, to boot.

Are you sure that you are computing the 'cabinet frontage' right? They give units in inches and you say feet. The formula is:

cabinet width in inches x number of drawers and/or shelves x the cabinet depth in feet

So, if you have a normal base cabinet (24 inches deep, or 2 feet) that is 27 inches wide with 3 drawers, the frontage is
27 x 3 x 2 = 162 inches.

A normal upper cabinet is 12 inches (1 foot) deep, so a 30 inch wide upper with 3 shelves would be
30 x 3 x 1 = 90 inches.

The same deeper upper cabinet that is 15 inches deep (1.25 feet) , 30 inches wide with 3 shelves would be
30 x 3 x 1.25 = 112.5 inches.

They are basically computing an area with units of inchesxfeet, which is stupid, but whatever. But they call it inches, even though it is an area, which should have units of length squared.

Sorry for the rant. I'm an engineer and this is really bugging me, if you can't tell. When I was planning, I found NKBA guidelines that were in square feet, so that's what I used, but my bookmark to the webpage is broken.

Go topless!

I used Pudgybaby's method of calcuation when determining how much storage I have in the current kitchen and how much I will have in any new layout I come up with. I can't find my link to the NKBA guidelines where this is explained. It also talks about how the most useful and used storage is in the zone between your knees and your shoulders or something thereabouts. Consider that too. It won't be very useful storage if it's all way down low so you must stoop to get items.

Oh, and I also considered how much space I would need in each zone. That seems VERY important to me. I have a lot of prep items so I need ample storage in that area.

I used linear inches of uppers and linear inches of lowers, and compare uppers and lowers separately. I have at least 20% more in both categories in my new plan. My new uppers will be taller, to ceiling, but I didn't count that. Then I gave special attention to anything that won't fit in a standard upper/lower - my wide popcorn bowl, My big slow cooker, microwave, etc. And then anything that is so heavy, or fragile, that it needs a special place. My stand mixer for example, is awkward to move. And things that live on counters. So I didn't measure every inch, but I have a good idea.

Everyone: Your links to the NKBA are probably not broken. Sometime around May of this year the NKBA started denying non-members access to the access standards. To get them now, you have to pay a fee to join or buy one of their books (not cheap).

No, not very consumer-friendly. I wonder if KDs started complaining that too many people knew more than they did or were starting to insist on meeting standards rather than the squeezing in of as many cabinets as possible (for more commission) that many KDs do rather than make a functional kitchen (or deal w/knowledgeable customers in general). OK, maybe I'm cynical, but for every good KD we ran into during our remodel, we ran into 3 or 4 that either really didn't know much except how to sell cabinets or they didn't want us to question them or their plans. In the minds of the latter KDs, the less we consumers know, the better!

It's too bad all KDs aren't as good as the pros that post here occasionally!

I don't know if this is what PudgyBaby and BreezyGirl were referring to, but I found this NKBA link for your perusal via kitchen.com:
http://www.kitchens.com/design/layouts/NKBA-guidelines.aspx

And then in the sidebar, there seem to be some interesting links to read.

As mentioned above, I would take the forum up on soliciting their feedback/comments on initial design layout. From what I've read (I'm a new member myself), the members are extremely generous with their time and sharing their expertise.

I've decided to go semi-topless on my reno and I'm liking the idea more and more each day. : )

Good luck with yours!

Another location for the NKBA kitchen guidelines below.

No, not consumer friendly at all, Buehl, and rather a defensive move, another cynic might think...

Becky

Here is a link that might be useful: NKBA kitchen guidelines

I think Lyvia described how to calculate the easiest. Compare apples to apples (lowers to lowers, lol).
I also do not get why the big difference with how many shelves. One could always add a shelf or stack items so the square footage is more important to me.

Measure how many lowers you now have and compare that to the new plan. I'd count each upper as half a lower since the depth is approx half, so you can then come to a total number. You will know how much more you need and if uppers are optional for you. As I said before, you could always add uppers later on if it does not work out topless, lol.

One detail that will maximize cabinet storage is the flexibility of the shelfing in the cabinets ... the more position the shelving has, the better the stuff can be fit into a given cabinet.

Thanks to all for the NKBA links and for the info on getting the measurements right. All your input really helped validate this approach, and after some tweaks, I think our kitchen is back on track for storage.

I'm MUCH less afraid of going topless now ;).

I am going to post the new Tetris kitchen layout plan for feedback ... soon. Not sure it's ready ... or is it that I'm not ready?!

I quintupled my storage space. Here is how:
frameless cabinets
large cabinets not small ones
all drawers
(you can pack a lot into drawers)

I used to have
framed cabinets
one bank of drawers in one cabinet
the other cabinets: with doors!
(you can store very little in them)

It's a small kitchen.

The guys over at Starcraft Builders also have a wonderful article on kitchen design from the ergonomic perspective; it was a big help to me to figure out when the "standards" are backed with reason and when they're just a side-effect of the cabinet industry's demand for mass-production normatization.

Check out their related article on upperless kitchens, too: Off the Wall Kitchens: Living Without Upper Cabinets.

Here is a link that might be useful: Mise en Place: What we can Learn from Commercial Kitchens