blind corner cabinet storage

[uncle al]

Not sure if this is posted in the right place, but here goes.

Does anyone have any brilliant idea/pics, etc on the best way to use the "dead space" in blind corner kitchen cabinets? I am buying some new kitchen cabinets, and one is a blind corner. There are a lot of expensive aftermarket inserts that have fancy "linked" pullouts, but this group is pretty inventive, as well as thrifty, and thought I would pick your brains.

Any ideas/suggestions out there? Anyone made a successful adaption/conversion they want to share?

Thanks

[dlminehart]

I've seen two options. In one, the adjacent cabinet doors are connected as one with a hinge between them, so you open the entire corner. This is usually combined with a lazy susan, as the back corner is pretty far back. The lazy susan has a 1/4 slice removed to accommodate the corner. In the second, there's only one door to the long blind cabinet, with some variation of a sliding floor on each shelf. To use, you must remove items from the immediately accessible part of the cabinet, then slide the floor over with the stuff that's back in the blind corner.

I think the lazy susan sounds the most likely to be well used.

[Esteban]

Take a look at this neat corner cabinet idea.
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworki....aspx?id=26527

[25]

My parents old house had one of those corner lazy susans, if you have kids you can expect things to get thrown off of it as they spin it around to try to get to something in the back. Other than that it worked really well.

[cabinetman]

In my experience I've found the circular lazy susans leave too much difficult to use space lost in the corners created by the circles. What I do is to make two doors with one hinged to one cabinet and the other hinged to that door. When both are open, the whole corner is exposed and easily accessible.



"I'M NEVER WRONG - BUT I'M NOT ALWAYS RIGHT"

[jhgrady]

Hi

Has anyone used that space from the other side of the wall - from within the next room.

John

[Lee4847]

other side

I have two corners. One I made a lazy susan like in the video. The other wasfacing the dining room and I turned the cabinet around facing the dining room and made a drawer unit for linins and things.

[RayintheUK]

I just run the cabinets into the corner and put in a fixed shelf at half height. The shelf has a recess removed from it which is the width of the door aperture and between 4" to 6" deep. This makes accessing the further parts considerably easier.

Ray.

[mschrank]

I'm in the process of figuring out new cabinets as well. This solution caught my eye:

[GeekMom]

Mike (mschrank), that is EXACTLY what I've been wanting to do in my kitchen. Where did you find it? I suppose it would be pretty difficult to retrofit an existing cabinet, though . . .

[mschrank]

Mike (mschrank), that is EXACTLY what I've been wanting to do in my kitchen. Where did you find it? I suppose it would be pretty difficult to retrofit an existing cabinet, though . . .

I saw that on the KraftMaid website...though I know I've seen it elsewhere as well. Depending on the door width opening and how much you are willing to contort yourself, I would think it might be possible to retrofit.

[GeekMom]

Thank you, Mike.

[Tom Slick]

I just finished building 2 blind corner cabinets and was going to ask the same question here, good timing!

[uncle al]

Thanks

Thanks to all for your insights. For the others who are interested, there are some very good retrofit metal units that will work even in relatively small blind corners, and they are priced from reasonable to outrageous. One salesman who had the german model on display said it would be cheaper to hire someone to live in the blind cabinet and pass stuff out to you when you needed it!! Since the unit was priced at just over $1000.00, he's probably right!!

Here is a link to one of the retrofit units

http://www.rev-a-shelf.com/series.asp?series=59. Actually, one of the more reasonable ideas that might work easily and last a few years, is retrofit-able, but loses much of the storage space in the cabinet, I think

There are many other ideas if you search google for blind corner cabinets
such as
http://www.shelvesthatslide.com/blind_corner.htm
The headline on this site is " if you've got the money, weve got the system"

There are also others like this that cost around $250-$275 from Lee Valley, which I ALMOST bought -- but decided on a chaper and simpler solution ( see below)

The one Mike showed in his link earlier is from Kraftmaid, and Diamond ( made by the same owner, as are most cabinet lines as it turns out).
While these are very clever, they require two levels of pullouts, one on a "retractable door" type unit (like you might use on an entertainment unit to slide the doors along the side to get them out of the way when you open it), mounted only on one side at the bottom, and I just don't see it lasting a long time. Also, the swing out unit seems to swing on a piano hinge, which is also a weak point. The demo units at HD were already showing the wear and tear on the weak spots.

You guys have pretty much confirmed that the simple approach is probably best. I am going to build two roller pullout drawers that will slide into the "dead space", and use the easily accessible space for something easy to pull out of the way( like the Kitchen-aid mixer, or the food processor) when I need to access these slide out drawers.
If anyone has any other ideas, I will continue to monitor for the great ideas.

Thanks again to all for the comments and ideas.

Alan