I am looking at incorporating this pantry rack arrangement into some tall cabs in a kitchen design I am cooking up. It is by Knape and Vogt, part of their high end “Virtu” line.
It is gonna run more than $800 per setup, just as shown above. One slide rack, hardware and fittings, four chromewire and glass racks. It had better be worth it.
Do any of you have experience with these?
Replies
Gene
I installed one in a kitchen a year or two ago, they are nice but as you said, $800!
I dont know that I'd put one in my place, maybe the cost is partly the issue but also I think I can come up with something better to utilize the intire cabinet space.
They were well built, not some flimsy cheap feel to it.
The two that I installed in the kitchen had the same problem as the one that you have pictured, cant access it from the one side, not real handy for things on the right side.
Doug
Rockler has some stuff.IIRC it has a set of top and bottom side to build your own out of wood.About $300 IIRC.
Hey, Doug. Thanks for the reply. I was beginning to think that the only guys reading my post were installing Merrillats from Home Depot. ;-)
If you saw my other post, where I have to get a kitchen into a loft room with three dormers, this is the one where I am cooking up these tall thin cabs. One of the dormer openings, a space 65-1/2" wide, might be the place for the fridge cab, if I can convince the owner to blank off the window. It looks out to absolutely nothing anyways. Here is the fridge cab.
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You can see the narrow tall boxes to L and R. Scherr's can make me dovetailed maple pullout trays on Blumotion Tandem slides to go in here, if I want. The inside width is 11-1/2", and even if we "billy block" spacer-boost the slide on the hinge side, we will still end up with trays with inside widths of 9.5 inches, which is wider than the KV Virtu trays.
By the way, those open-frame "shelf" boxes above the cabs are done by stacking a 12" deep box on top of the 24-deep boxes of the lower tall cabs. I am thinking that by the time we get up above most people's eye level, that shelf space in a 24-deep cab is a waste. So I tried to incorporate some space for some nick-nacks, or cookbooks. The top end of these open boxes is up around 7 feet. Whatcha think?
I saw the pic's of the kitchen and I like the ideas.
I think someone mentioned the island being to large or out of proportion, I didn't really sense that, maybe you could slender it up a bit if you/customer think you need to.
I like the kitchen design but with no uppers I would definitely go with pull out trays or drawers everywhere.
Your right about the 12" cabinet above a fridge, nobody seams to use the depth of a 24" up that high.
If it were me I would probably go with pull outs in those two cabinets on either side of the fridge, I think they hold more then the KV systems do. Maybe the HO will want the chrome KV system though and you'll have to go that route.
All in all for what you have to work with I think your ideas are right on for a working kitchen, uppers aren't a prerequisite to having a functional kitchen!
Doug
Thanks, Doug. I think things will work out pretty well. We'll do pullout trays everywhere.
I met with the owner today and sold the package pretty much as-is. I'll give him a layout for where all the mechanicals and electricals go, where we can hide the transformers for the 12V lighting, ducting routes, etc., and he'll go ahead and order a shorter window for over where the sink is going. We'll blank off the window behind the fridge with a black panel.
Ought to be handsome when all done. I'll post some pics.
"uppers aren't a prerequisite to having a functional kitchen!"
True, but I can just see people in 2026 ripping out the old kitchen to put in one with uppers, saying "That trend during the turn of the centry to have no upper cabinets was just stupid. I can't understand what possessed them to cut down storage".
Fads come and go. There was a time when having a linoleum floor was a symbol of wealth, so you put it in your living room where people could see it.
. . . I can just see people in 2026 ripping out the old kitchen to put in one with uppers . . .
Did you look at the room? Hello? Anybody in there?
Oh! I get it! You'll propose decapitating the place, and raising up the roof by four feet.
All for some upper cabs?
GeneBack away from the caffeine
Barry E-Remodeler
Gene,
One more vote for the pull-outs. One of the things I really like about them is then each shelf is fully accessible from the top, vs. just the sides if it's all one unit. And as you know you hardly lose any width with the Blum Tandems. Here's mine (16½" inside opening so a bit bigger than yours but close):
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Wayne
Edited 8/16/2006 10:04 pm by wrudiger
Edited 8/16/2006 10:04 pm by wrudiger
Relax Gene. I was speaking in general terms, not specific to you. I never said "You should put uppers in your room". I remarked that I see a general trend to eliminate upper cabs in many designs, and that to me is is a fad and in 20 years we'll see if it's still popular. Another common design idea that is very popular is having the kitchen incorporated into the living area. Yet there are large groups of people, including many asians, who hate that arrangement. Will it be as popular in 20, 30, or 50 years? Who knows. By then power may be so expensive that in the south they will have gone back to the kitchen as a separate building to keep the heat away from the house.
Besides,
1) you didn't post the room on this thread - I'm not sure which kitchen you are talking about here. I don't think it is the one I saw with the big island because the fridge wasn't on the window wall there.
2) I firmly believe in different strokes for different folks. What works for you and your clients doesn't have to appeal to me.
Well hopefully, the original poster has answers to his questions, but continuing the highjack...I'm sure different people do like different cabinet arrangements. I do find that having some counter space without upper cabinets over them is really nice.And I agree with the Asians; the kitchen is for cooking and should not be part of a "great room" or whatever.
I like some counter without uppers, but I also like to have some uppers. With children, keeping things out of their reach entails either drilling holes in cabinets to install the lock, or putting them up high. Plus, I don't really like to bend over that much. I find it an interesting point that people install built-in ovens so they won't have to bend over as much to pull out the turkey, yet they are fine with bending over every day for years to pull the dishes out of the drawers.
I disagree Aimless. I think by 2026 you'll see even more of what we'd call unusual, by todays standards, then you do now.
I live down near Austin TX and you'd probably be shocked at what is done in kitchens down there. I've been involved in some that certainly surprised me and I think that trend is more likely to continue then the "traditional" kitchen that you or I may think is cool.
But, by 2026 I doubt it will matter much, certainly wont to me!
Doug
"There was a time when having a linoleum floor was a symbol of wealth..."Now it is just a sign of a classy residence. (I'm installing some in my addition!)An ex-boat builder treading water!
I have some slim cabinets in my motorhome that hold a ton... the whole face pulls out like one huge slim tall drawer so you have access to eveything has 3 fixed shelfs (btm, mid, & top they each have maybe 3" sides or lip, and there is an adjustable shelf between the fixed ones... again they all have lips which i assume would be required in a motorhome... but also it has to help make it strong & square...
p
Pile O Crud!
Try
accuride
TRIGGER
Trigger
I've used them all and accuride is far from the best.
Doug
OK. Good thing to know.
TRIGGER
It looks like you will end up with relatively little storage for the money. Lee Valley has some individual metal shelves, available in several widths, that roll out. They attach to the sides of the case and are very well made. I put some in our new kitchen and they work pretty well, although any time you use premade shelves, you inevitably lose otherwise usable space. I looked at the stuff that was going in the shelves, i.e. cans, bottles, boxes of various sizes, and placed some shelves close together and some farther apart.
In the unit you show, and in the Lee Valley units I installed, you don't benefit from the full depth of the cabinet. In addition, the mechanism uses up space on the sides and top and bottom. I wish I had just built drawers like I did in the rest of the kitchen. At some point, I will probably do that.
here is a link:
http://www.leevalley.com/hardware/page.aspx?c=1&p=43728&cat=3,43722,43723&ap=1
Edited 8/16/2006 9:20 am ET by smslaw
I put an item like that into a pantry cabinet about 12 years ago. It was from Hafele and was a two-wide version of what's in your pic with some additional baskets to go on the inside of the doors. Extremely nice stuff, very expensive. I designed and had built a set of acrylic bins for baking ingredients in the same kitchen.
I just installed 2 sets from Hafele -- very, very well engineered and worth the $ only doing this once and don't want to look back a few years form now and say I wish -- mine are 18" wide and 84" high -- due to the cabinet configuration - I can access mine from both sides -- they glide in and out effortlessly and hold 225 lbs for each unit
as others have stated Hafele is a line you can go with along with a few others. try this site. i don't know where you are buying from and mark up, but they may be able to help. there are a few others located on the West Coast that will sell the cabinets makers and contractors
http://www.louisandcompany.com/
http://www.ebbradley.com/
http://www.charlesmcmurray.com/
I would put in five dovetailed drawer boxes with Blum full extension drawer glides and my material costs would be about $350.
Bing
Why not just have it as an open cabinet ( like a broom closet ) and then make or have made, a wooden roll in unit. Think flat bottom with wheels or casters, a full width front and back piece with a connecting top piece and depending on depth, a middle support. and then shelves with a 2" high lip that are either fixed or adjustable, or even have the middle one fixed and a couple or 3 adjustable ones above and below that.
Put it on swivel wheels and it can roll in or out, turn to either side for easier access and can be taken out to retrieve anything that falls off the rack or for easier cleaning and then scoot back in with no effort.