How deep are the shelves in your 24” deep kitchen cabinets?

last month

We just took delivery of Eclipse cabinets for our kitchen - $65k! I was shocked and dismayed to find that all the 24” deep cabinets (with a door vs drawers) are filled with 12” deep shelves. This includes the cabinets above my pantry (pantry has pullouts), above my double oven and above my refrigerator. As well as all the base cabinets with doors. I had planned to store my large serving ware and bowls on deep upper shelves. Is this standard? I feel like we were short changed on storage. Our KD never brought this up in the design process. What do I do now? (Photo shows pantry next to oven cabinet)

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Comments (5)

mojavemaria
last month
I believe in base cabinets with drawers this is a normal thing but not in a pantry cabinet nor your above the oven cabinet.

I would contact whoever you ordered the cabinets from, if they provided the full depth shelves perhaps some holes could be drilled in your cabinet sides lining up with the existing ones to support the deeper shelves.
chispa
last month
last modified: last month
I've never seen similar cabinets that didn't have full depth shelves, so I would definitely feel short changed. Talk to the KD asap.

Also, not finishing up taping and priming that back wall is lazy workmanship. None of the contractors I have used for remodels or new construction have left my walls half finished.
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drwass
last month
It seems unusual that the cabinet shelves would not be full depth, so it is definitely worth a conversation. Maybe they can drill holes in the cabinets and put in adjustable, full depth shelves . They often can fix things "in the field". I am wondering why your oven cabinet does not have a back on it.
Buehl
last month
This is NOT standard. The shelves should be full-depth. I will say, though, that this is probably the worst type of pantry storage - stationary, deep shelves. If you get them to re-do, ask for roll out tray shelves (ROTS) instead. While not perfect, they're much better than stationary shelves. You can still store serving trays, etc., in them, but you can also store other things in them.

For information - when we moved into our current home last year, we had pantry cabinets with deep, stationary shelves similar to what you were expecting. It was awful!!! We have since re-done them (and the terribly dysfunctional island). For the 18" wide, we put in a pullout similar to what you have in the bottom and ROTS in the top. For the 21" wide (2 of them), we retro-fitted ROTS in the top & bottom (we couldn't find a 21" wide pullout). For the very top ROTS, I need a stool to access (my DH doesn't!), but I would have had to so anyway with the original shelves and still not been able to get to the back of the shelves. I'm not short (5'10").

[When we looked at the house prior to purchasing, I noticed the homeowners (who were both rather short) had only put items in the front 9 to 12" of the shelves.]

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Caveat: Builder-grade cabinets might have shallow shelves like this, but I would be surprised if even builder-grade had them at this height. Builder-grade often have shallow (12"D), fixed shelves in the base cabinets.
PRO
The Kitchen Place
last month
last modified: last month
What is standard for one company is not for another. This is not typical with most cabinet manufacturers, but this IS STANDARD with Eclipse.

I am an Eclipse (Shiloh) dealer. In their tall cabinets, behind the lower doors are full depth shelves (or rollout shelves). In the upper section, they are not full depth. However, they can be specified as FDS (full depth shelves) as a cabinet modification. I always, upgrade the upper sections to full depth shelves. But not all designers do this.

The spec book appears that the gang drilling is still at the front as well, meaning the holes are there for full depth shelves. So all you need to do is have them reorder deeper shelves.

If gang drilling is not there, then you need someone to drill some holes. That is tricky and would be hard to do on site. Not impossible, but not easy.

Eclipse also has two versions of tall units.

U or UT. Their utility "tall" cabinets have a taller lower door and a shorter upper door....looks like you have the U version. See pics below....both U and UT specs