you want the drawer to be deep enough for your tallest pot. but you really dont want pots to be stacked more than 2 deep. and i believe the expression is just how they are used. they are wide like base cabinets but the same depth as the drawers in any drawer cabinet.

my last kitchen redo had deep drawers, this one i didnt bother with them as i found them to be inconvenient. instead i went with a set of more shallow drawers for heavy le cruset cookware (no stacking) , pullouts behind doors for small appliances, and a really shallow (front to back) cabinet under my cooktop so that nothing is stacked and nothing is behind something else.

Thanks ninigret. That's kinda what I thought. Currently I have all my pots and pans in one 24" wide cabinet - a framed recessed-shelf box like the one below.. It's ridiculously inconvenient to get to my large pots (which are stacked in the bottom at the back of course) - I have to take out everything in front to get to them. But the pots are not THAT large - none over 9" deep I don't think. I would have put in a slider, but with the frame, I would lose so much space on the sides that I couldn't even put the same items back in there. All my base cabinets are like this, and I hate that about them - the frame is such a limitation. Not replacing them though - that's way too expensive. But I've learned enough about frameless cabinets to know that this is what I want, in my future island.

I'm planning on putting a 30" 3-drawer (with the bottom 2 drawers being the same depth) cabinet, and beside it, a 24" 4 drawer, both frameless. I'm hoping this will give me a much more accessible space for my pots and pans. I was concerned about how well they would hold up (so many here say that they are not as sturdy) but it sounds like the Barker cabs are plenty strong.

We have one drawer full of tupperware and glass storage stuff, and one full of bakeware of all kinds. Both superconvenient. Our pots and pans are in a lazy susan, so I can't really speak to the depth issue, although our "regular" drawers fit a pretty good stack of bakeware (large casseroles with smaller baking pans on top, or a big stack of nested glass dishes), so you could certainly get a stack of frypans and one or two sauce pans. I suggest taking one of your larger pans along on your next visit to the kitchen store, as there's nothing like empirical testing! :)

Pretty sure all I need is a tape measure. :-) I already measured my tallest pot, and it is less than 9", so I think the Barker cabinet should work.