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


Fat Guy

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17,3/4 with flat under cabinet lights on bottoms of the uppers...floor to top of granitecounters is34,3/4,,,

When I built the cabinets I just used standard sizes forthe cabs,and that is what it turned out to be,If the granite would have been different thickness, would have been a bit different...

Bud

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New kitchen going in and the base cabinets should be installed next week. If all goes according to the IKEA plan, there should be about 26-28" from the counter to the wall cabinets. I wanted lots of clearance so went for the smaller upper cabinets (still have plenty of storage -- in theory).

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Mine are 25 inches above the counter. I only have one section of wall cabinets above a counter.

"There are, it has been said, two types of people in the world. There are those who say: this glass is half full. And then there are those who say: this glass is half empty. The world belongs, however, to those who can look at the glass and say: What's up with this glass? Excuse me? Excuse me? This is my glass? I don't think so. My glass was full! And it was a bigger glass!" Terry Pratchett

 

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We have an island setup with nothing above the work surface but lights. Don't like cupboards above the bench; it's oppressive to have a door in my face when I'm trying to prepare/cook something.

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Unless I am mistaken, FG (or is it NSFG now?) has not answered the question from Deus Mortus yesterday...why the fascination with this measurement?

A question from me: Do most folks have blocks of cabinets? Therefore, if the distance reported is, say, 23"...are all the cabinets 23" from the countertop?

We have a galley kitchen...two walls with everything just a few feet apart. The cabinets have various heights to accommodate the window, sink, stove, fridge... It doesn't look higgledy-piggledy, at least not to me. Very functional. (Way too small for my current obsessions, but then as my late Mother was wont to say, and endlessly: You don't always get everything you want. )

Darienne

 

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I have two differernt hts:

20" and 22" this is a Home Depot redo I did a few years ago and i picked those heights

more importantly I have a Corian single piece counter top with a 4 " splash guard on each side, and the counter top is 29" wide which I picked giving me more counter top space and a narrow-er floor space so I can just turn around side to side. the sink was put in on an end at 45 degrees : that was their idea and a very good one it turns out!

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mine are 20 " and 22"

i picked those on a HD redo a few years ago.

i chose a corian single piece top with a 4 " splash guard but made the counter tops 30 " wide which give me a narrow-er floor for easier turn arounds side to side

the sink is at one end turned 45 degrees: HD's idea and a very good one. I have large 1 3/4 " wood-working bench tops of solid maple on top of the corian:

http://grizzly.com/products/searchresults.aspx?q=workbench%20tops&new=1

sorry for the double post: coudnt find the original to add the bench tops

Edited by rotuts (log)
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Huh. I went back and measured all of the cabinets, and while they all appear to be the same distance off the countertop, I've only got one bank at 31" - the remainder are at 24". I wonder why I never noticed that before?

So, one block of hanging cabinets, which are double-faced and are hung above the breakfast countertop, have 31" of clearance, and the ones on the walls have only 24" but still leave enough room for me to hang all manner of kitchen gubbins from the walls underneath, and my Kitchenaid mixer (a 45-SS, which always makes me think of the old super-stock Dodge I used to have - so much so that I'm tempted to paint racing stripes on it) has enough clearance that I can have it under the cupboards and actually tilt it up should I so wish.

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12 inches...which is obviously not enough for anything. Actually the cabinets on either side of the sink used to sweep the countertops, so I took the doors off. When we got ne countertops I had the frames cut to match the others in height but still left the doors off. These cabients have spices and the dishes/glasses.

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Mine are 17 3/4 inches above the granite countertops. That's just enough height for the stand mixer, the coffee machine and a little TV/DVR setup in the corner. There are light strips under the upper cabinets, too (wouldn't be without them - what the heck good is a celing light if you're working in your own shadow?) The upper cabinets go all the way to the ceiling, which is good for storage in my small kitchen but I do need a stepstool to get to anything up there. The countertops are 36 inches from the floor, and even though I'm just 5'4" I'd like them to be higher (bad, evil back). But then the cabinets would be too low for the appliances, so I guess I'll leave well enough alone. I do wonder sometimes, though, how my 6' tall husband can stand working at 36" counter height if I find them too low.

(Edited to remove a redundundundancy.) :smile:

Edited by Special K (log)
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thats a good point. I made mine 37 " up to the corian top and with the butchers block that I factored in the counters are in fact "functionally" 39 " up (on purpose) ( being 6' 2" but with a ' 36 " ' arm length so the 'true' space between the functional top and the cabineets is 18" : and 20 " which Im very lucky to say I planned for.

isnt it interesting how cook-top gadgets and ht are so important for "work-space"

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14&1/2-inches, which is woefully inadequate. My KA, which is a tilt-head model, not a bowl lift, just barely, barely eeks under the edge, and obviously, I can't tilt the head up under the cabinets. More annoyingly, I can't tip a 12-inch saute pan, which I use just about every day, up to pour food out onto a serving dish, or another pan. It also just seems to me like I'm working in a box. But that could be due to the fact I'm 6-feet, 3-inches tall, so my face and eyes (not to mention hands...) are way higher than the average person using the counter....

And like others, there is plenty of deadspace above the cabinets that could have allowed them to be hung higher.

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Unless I am mistaken, FG (or is it NSFG now?) has not answered the question from Deus Mortus yesterday...why the fascination with this measurement?

I noticed variation, was intrigued by it, and wanted to get a bigger sample than just the kitchens I've been in.

Steven A. Shaw aka "Fat Guy"
Co-founder, Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, sshaw@egstaff.org
Proud signatory to the eG Ethics code
Director, New Media Studies, International Culinary Center (take my food-blogging course)

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16.5 inches everywhere except over the peninsula overlooking the family room/eating bar. 29 inches there.

Larry

Yep, that pretty much matches mine... the cooktop is under the 29 inchers, next to the eating bar.

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