What about 20 and 20? If your cabinet maker is not OK with making the drawers bigger than 36, I'd figure out a different way to do it, or you'll likely not be happy with his outcome. If he's saying no, it's for a reason- probably support.

What about good big 32 or 34" drawers flanked by vertical storage for baking sheets, etc.?

Now that last idea I like! I think I'll work on that a bit. He's supposed to be emailing me the drawings but I haven't received them yet. As soon as I do, I'll post.

We've got some 40 inch (1 meter) drawers, and really like them. FWIW.

I've heard that they may warp when getting into the bigger sizes... perhaps that is the cabinet makers apprehension. I also like the idea of the vertical tray/baking sheet storage. Those are typically 9" wide. Another cabinet you could try is the vertical spice drawers... these are typically a 6"x6" slab drawer front stacked, one on top of another, so this takes up a little less space, particularly if you flank the draws (12" vs. 18"... meaning you'd have a bank of draws 28" wide vs. 22"... the 22" might start feeling cramped for your larger supplies). The spice draws could hold things like cupcake holder, cake decorating supplies, cookie cutters, rolling pins, etc.

just a thought.

I have seen 60" wide drawers- they were very shallow and used for linens. I think the deeper the drawer (at a certain width and beyond) the less stable they are and the less weight they can hold.

The two drawers under my cooktop for storing pots and pans are 48" wide and 11" deep. They're filled with heavy cookware. The drawers are custom built to be sturdier than standard drawers and the suspension hardware is extra heavy duty. They've been in constant daily use for over three years, and still glide out with a pull from my pinkie, and glide closed again with a nudge from my knee. No problems whatever.

The cabinet maker assured me he could build them so that I wouldn't have any problems -- and I haven't.

Can't speak to a custom cabinet but many European style frameless cabinets drawers come as wide as 48". They are standard depth (24") and holds a lot of stuff!

Good luck!

Thank you all! My GC said if I had my heart set on the wide drawers that we'd order the cab w/o drawers and he'd build them for me (he does some cabinet building). I'll let you know what I decide to do.

On the Blum company site they say they can do 40" (one metric meter) and deep.

-david

Thanks, I think we have come up with the solution. Here are the drawings.

Go with the wide drawers.

I build them fairly often, I just up the sides to 3/4" thickness and depending on the depth of the drawer, I'll use either 1/2" or 3/4" ply for the bottoms.

Stiff as all, no concerns about flexing or warping.

You might want to consider changing from the small knob drawer pull to a bar pull, or something a little easier to grab. Totally your choice though. It depends on the final size of the drawer and how much weight you plan on loading into them.

Our own bake center drawer usually has 60 pounds of flour, 10-15 pounds of sugar, about 10 pounds of brown sugar, plus other assorted ingredients.

Mongo

Thanks Mongo. The hardware shown is not my hardware, just something the cab maker stuck on there. I will def be going with some sort of bar pull.

Are you rolling dough, kneading, mixing & rolling pasta on the lower cabinet? I don't think 36'' is enough for a passionate baker. I would suggest double drawers and a wider work surface.

I would also suggest that your granite or marble overhang be substantial- to avoid dribbling liquids or flour down the front of your cabinets.

Good to hear that you'll be using a different pull.

A couple other "bell and whistle" things I've done over the years...I've done concrete bake center tops and cast a copper spiral into them (for marble I'll sandwich it between two pieces of marble), then connected that spiral to a cooling unit, usually located in the basement. The "cooling unit" is usually something I've retooled from a dehumidifier.

Flip a switch or turn a timer knob and in a few minutes you have a nicely cooled pastry slab.

In marble slabs I've used a diamond bit in a small router to mill a groove into the marble's surface.

Sometimes it's straight lines with ruled marks, other times it's circles for pie crusts, usually a combination of the two.

I'll then epoxy a brass, aluminum, stainless, whatever, piece of metal into the groove so it's flush with the surface of the marble with no voids to capture food debris.

Or in concrete countertops I'll cast them in during the pour.

Mongo

Cotehele, I now have 40" for the counter. That's pretty much what I have now and it works for me.

Mongo, you are too cool for school!

Just some thoughts after looking at your drawings...while I really love the look of your drawings, I'm thinking about how that space will function. Where will you keep your mixer? Maybe in one of the flipper door spaces? For myself 40" would be a tight squeeze. I had a kitchen where the cabs came down to the counter to hide small appliances and it was something I regreted doing because it seemed like I was always turning around to place a sheet pan or whatever on my longer uninterrupted island counter BEHIND me. Without those cabs coming down to the counter you've got a very nice stretch of workable counter space adjacent to a heavy use zone, on both sides! Just me two cents...good luck with everything!

Thanks for your thoughts, twoscoops (of raisins?) :)

I went back and forth on those cabs coming to the counter and finally decided on this design. I may regret it during those times like you mentioned (I'll have a peninsula perpendicular to the end of the hutch) and I may end up having to pivot to use the other counter. But more often than not I think I'll like having things hidden and out of the way b/c that seems to my biggest source of irritation right now. I don't like things out on the countertops.

armomto3, I do believe that your 40" can be plenty. However, I'd strongly recommend making them extra deep i.e. instead of the customary 25" deep counters, make them 30". The cabinet maker doesn't have to make the cabinets extra deep if he doesn't want to (although I'd certainly try for that) but if they can be installed proud of the back wall so that your counters are extra deep, it is remarkable how much the extra 4 or 5" brings to the workplan.

I have 29.5" counters on one wall to fit into a certain pre-existing niche in our kitchen area and the extra counter depth is absolutely fantastic for working. That counter is nearly 8 feet long but I can tell you from working there that as much as I love the 8' length, I soooo don't need it because of that extra depth.

That said, make sure that the uppers there, if you really want 'em, are WELL out of the way. As a baking area, you don't want to get bashful about using that space because flying dough or splatters from mixing batter etc. may cramp your style. Now *that* is something I wish I'd thought of when I put the uppers where I did on that extra deep counter wall. It is the one thing that I do have to think about when using that space. As a result, although I LOVE working at this extra deep spot, I wind up turning around and working at the opposite wall (which doesn't have the deeper counters) when I need to beat eggs or whatever, since there are no uppers there to worry about getting splatters onto.

That middle section is stepped out to 26 1/8 (the ends are the standard 24 1/8) so with the countertop it'll come to about 28 depending on the over hang.

Good point about splatters, do you think with having the counter lowered 6" it will help keep splatters off the uppers? Of course, that doesn't do much for the sides.

Armomto3, Yes, I'd imagine 6" + 18" should be jolly good clearance! I did think of that lowered counter as adding to your headroom but since I didn't see the dims mentioned, I thought I'd make a note of it. Yes, 'tis true there'll be splatters on the back and sides, but frankly, to some extent, no matter where you work, you'd have spatters to clean up. The roof/underside of the uppers is a bit more of a bother kinematically-speaking, so I think that addressing that would be a priority. just make sure you have enough poly or whatever on the sides and backsplash of that cabinet enclosure to make sure you can wipe it down without damaging the wood.

The only thing I'd point out - ESPECIALLY, if the working counter protrudes out - is that you carefully consider the counter protruberances into this baking area space from the two side cabinets. Otherwise, I can see myself chipping and cracking bowls against those corners with gay abandon, given the way I work. Just a heads up.

Hmmm, good point, something to think about.

And lol at your "cracking bowls with gay abandon"! Gave me a chuckle as I pictured that in my head! :)