The distance from your countertop to the bottom of your wall cabinets

[Fat Guy]

21.5 inches here.

You?

[Deus Mortus]

My kitchen wall c... what?

I think something went wrong there, do you mean ceiling? IN that case 157cm or 61.8 inches, or do you mean from the floor? In that case 90cm or 35.4 inches, or do you mean the depth of the counter? In which case it's 60cm or 23.6 inches.

I see you edited that >_< In that case it's, 60cm or 23.6 inches.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Deus Mortus (log)

[Fat Guy]

The question is the distance from your countertop to the bottom of your wall cabinets.

[Darienne]

I'm still lost. You don't mean to where the cabinets attach to or sit on the floor?

[Fat Guy]

In most kitchens there are two sets of cabinets: base cabinets and wall cabinets. The base cabinets sit on the floor. The countertop sits on top of the base cabinets. There is then some distance from your countertop to the bottom of your wall cabinets, which are mounted to the wall above the countertop. I'm asking people what that measurement is, because I've noticed variation.

[Panaderia Canadiense]

Wall cabinets are the hanging cupboards; floor cabinets support your countertop. Fat Guy's looking for the distance from your countertop to the bottom of the hanging cupboards.

The distance between mine is about 36" - I'm too lazy to measure at the moment. I find my counters to be abysmally low, but the house I live in was built with standard-sized Ecuadorians in mind. I'm a giant here at 6' tall.

[Fat Guy]

I'd be interested in confirmation of that measurement. I've never seen anything near that.

[ScoopKW]

We have no wall cabinets. All of them are base cabinets. Anything else strikes me as a waste of kitchen cabinet space, which is the most-prized real estate at my house.

Sorry, NOW I get it. We do all our work on an island, so the distance is about six feet to the ceiling. We have more counter space for kitchen gadgets, the distance between that and the wall cabinets is 24"

Edited June 17, 2011 by ScoopKW (log)

[Fat Guy]

So what do you have above your countertops?

[Panaderia Canadiense]

OK, I just measured. My countertops are 31" from the bottom of my high cabinets.

It might be due to the way kitchens are designed here - everybody's except mine has a little step-stool for accessing the wall cabinets.

ETA - The wall underneath the hanging cabinets has all manner of hooks and whatnot on it for storing kitchen tools and pots and pans and whatnots; I keep my whisks on the wall, as well as my bageling implements, my knives (on a mag-strip), and all of the spatulas (spatulae? spatuli?) that have holes in them for hanging. The wall closest to the sink has strainers and colanders on it.

Edited June 17, 2011 by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

[Fat Guy]

Fascinating.

[Anna N]

From my counter top to the bottom of my upper cabinets is 18.25 inches.

[Darienne]

Bless you, young'uns for your kindness to an old...and slightly senile...white-haired lady. Somehow the eye missed the salient detail 'wall'.

So business:

over the sink: 17 1/4" and 22 1/4"

other side of kitchen: 19 1/4" and 29 1/4" (plus two other cabinets which I didn't count: one over the hanging microwave and over other the fridge.

DH built the kitchen and put the cabinets up so as to give us the most storage space.

[DesertTinker]

17 5/8" here, don't know why the odd measurement, there's 13 plus inches of space over the wall cabinets.

[Fat Guy]

From my counter top to the bottom of my upper cabinets is 18.25 inches.

My impression is that this is the norm. I think our old wall cabinets were about that high. The new ones seem high to me, though some folks here seem to have some radically higher ones.

[Joe Blowe]

When I was installing our tile backsplash, I actually removed the wall cabinets (the 'uppers') and re-hung them at 19" off the surface of the countertops.

We also have one rogue cabinet that clocks in at 25" off the countertop! That was mainly for aesthetic reasons (so that the top was inline with some pantry cabs), but it turns out that we like all that clearance under there. You do need a step ladder to get to the top shelf, though...

[heidih]

Mine are just a tad over 21 and a half inches from countertop to bottom of uppers. I have seen some horrific installations. A friend who barely hits 5 feet in heels had the guys install them so high that she had to use a step stool to get stuff off the lowest shelf. They assured her it was "standard". What they did was take them to the ceiling! I have a soffit that takes care of the dead space above. Here is a blurry image.

[Deus Mortus]

Might I inquire why the fascination with cabinet height?

[pastrygirl]

About 15-3/8 inches. A couple more would be nice sometimes.

[ElsieD]

14.75"

[Peter the eater]

Without opening my home office copy of Architectural Graphics Standards I can assure you that 18" to the underside of the wall mounted cabinet is pretty much the norm for a 36" counter top in a room with an 8' ceiling. Sixteen inches is barely enough to park a KitchenAid nevermind tilt the head. Two feet is generous, but if you've got 10' ceilings and a step ladder, why not?

Somewhere I've got the specs for a kitchen in Orlando built for an NBA center. I recall the counters were 42" and 48" off the finished floor.

Incidentally, I read this topic title as "The distance from your countertop to the bottom of your wal..." and I thought it was going to read "wallet".

[Porthos]

18". 1984 ranch-style house in southern California.

[JC]

Interesting to see that the distances are relatively quite small. I see a few that are 17"-18" to the low 20s. The 14.75" reported by ElsieD was surprising (to me at least).

Over here the wall cabinets are typically about 60" off the floor. Countertops are about 32"-33" off the floor. So the distance b/w countertop and bottom of the wall cabinets is from 27"-28".

[bmdaniel]

17-3/4 to the false front of the cabinet, 19-1/4 to the bottom

[BarbaraY]

14 7/8. It was built low so there could be another bank of cabinets over the top. Base cabinets are 35 1/2 from floor. One wall cabinet is 17 1/8 from the base cabinet to accommodate the Kitchen Aid.