A Primer on Corner Kitchen Cabinets
Corner kitchen cabinets come in a variety of configurations. Fixed shelves, lazy susans (who IS this Susan person anyway? Click THIS LINK for a possible explanation) and rotating doors are all different options available for corner kitchen cabinets. The first picture here is a simple square corner kitchen cabinet. It has a hinged, two section door and fixed shelves. These are the simplest in terms of operation, but not necessarily the easiest to get in to and reach things.
Diagonal corner kitchen cabinets, especially those with lazy susans, make life a little easier as far as getting at things you have stored in them. Some people like the gradual lines of a diagonal corner more than a right angle. Beware though, if you’re getting such a cabinet and planning on laminate countertops. See here for details.
This corner kitchen cabinet can be a pain. All put together in a run, it’s fine. Getting it there is another story, Generally, they don’t stand on their own. You can’t install an appliance next to them without end panels on the cabinet itself (or a dishwasher end panel in the case of a dishwasher). Just be careful if one of these ends up in your kitchen design. You’re better off with a unit like what’s in the next picture.
This corner cabinet makes things a little easier as far as the install goes. You can get it with finished sides (so that you don’t see bare plywood or particleboard if you put a stove next to it) and it’s as structurally sound as any other cabinet, so there’s no problem with countertops if it’s on the end of a run of kitchen cabinets. I think with one of these cabinets, you’re best off with the biggest you can get. The 33″ corner cabinet that I’m familiar with (it’s at my neighbor’s house, and I’m in it a lot) seems cramped.. Also note that since the whole door rotates, the overlay with this particular corner cabinet might be different than in the rest of the kitchen. It often looks more like an inset style door.
At last we come to the blind corner kitchen cabinet. A rather odd cabinet, and not used much, these cabinet still have a lot to offer. This one is tricked out a bit, but blind corner kitchen cabinets are essentially a regular base cabinet with a wide open side to them.
The open side butts up against the side of another cabinet. These corner kitchen cabinets are handy when you are cramped for space along one wall of cabinets. The previous corner kitchen cabinets all take up more than 30 inches both ways. These, being similar to a regular base cabinet, only take up 24 inches one way. There is some finagling you have to do with these (the term is “pulling”) to make things match up, and I’ll cover that more in depth in another article. Suffice to say that they’re not hard to design with, and some people argue that their a better use of space than the other types of corner kitchen cabinets. This one pictured has a sort of quarter lazy susan and roll trays, which adds some weight to that argument.
Corner kitchen cabinets are almost as varied as regular kitchen cabinets. Remember that as you sit with a designer so that you maximize the use of your corners.
Written by:
Craig
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