When did this stop being a thing? (Kitchens)

[Stephisaur]

So we are looking at replacing our tired 1960s fitted kitchen. It's very robust but, frankly, could just do with dragging into the 21st century.

I've realised that, at some point, drawers above kitchen base cabinets (as in, between the cabinet and the worktop) seem to have disappeared from modern kitchen design entirely.

I hadn't really thought about it, but I've since realised that I hadn't seen it in a kitchen for YEARS until we bought this house.

So... when did they fall out of fashion? 😂

They are often hidden within the base cabinet, so it just looks like one cabinet but when you open it there's a drawer at the top.

Omg yes!! I missed all the drawers when our early 90s kitchen was ripped out!

Quite often these days you have a set of taller cupboard-style cabinets with more height where the drawer used to be, then one or two units that are 100% sets of drawers (depending on how many you want). Usually you get three drawers in a unit, and the bottom one is really big which is perfect for pots and pans! It's a great development as it means the drawers and cupboards are more useful.

An example:

@CircleWithin haven't seen those kind, they sound like a great solution!

@monpetitlapin yes I do love a good all drawer solution (particularly under the hob!) had some like your example kitchen in our last house but they barely fit anything in they were so narrow 😂

@PatFussy they need to make a comeback 😂or maybe not actually as ours are mostly full of unnecessary shite 😂

I agree. Ideally I want a drawer about each cupboard. I've been in some houses where there are no drawers at all... where the hell do people put their cutlery?!

Actually I’d say that nowadays, kitchens are ALL drawers rather than cupboards (we’re looking at replacing our kitchen too. If you look at what IKEA proposed for example, it’s very much like that)

It was probably a cost thing as drawers are more expensive and cupboards cheaper. And people realised that deep drawers are better for easily accessible storage. Think it's been the case for at least 15 years as they weren't an option for our new kitchen in previous house!

Having recently lived with some in an older kitchen in a rental though they weren't that useful - the drawers were quite shallow and it limited the amount of stuff you could put in the cupboard below. We have gone for two sets of drawer units in our new house - the pan drawers are amazing! And a tall cupboard with internal drawers as a pantry.

The internal cutlery drawers within a drawer are a pain though as you have to open two things just to quickly grab a teaspoon or whatever.

My kitchen is about 20 years old (put in by previous owners) and it has drawers between all the cupboards and worktops, so it can't be that long since they were standard. If I get to design my next kitchen, it will have drawers like monpetitlapin's example, and a pantry cupboard where I can get to containers of flour and so on without moving everything out of the way.

I think it’s cost: a cupboard with drawers costs more than a plain cupboard, but isn’t as good as a stack of drawers and the cupboard space is smaller - if you’re spending more anyway, just spend a little more and get all drawers. Plus fashion: stark empty kitchens like Plain English or anything you see on Inigo House are quite fashionable, and a cupboard with drawers is quite fussy.

Totally agree with the internal cutlery drawers. We were in a holiday cottage last month and spent ages looking for the cutlery drawer. Eventually found it, hidden in a cupboard and spent the rest of the week cursing at having to open a door to access the drawer! Couldn’t be doing with that as a permanent fixture!

it's a modularity thing.

If you have cabinent and drawers you have two modules.

If you have cabinet, cabinent and draw and drawers you have three modules.

Two modules, higher volume in each module, cheaper to produce.

You’re so right and this annoys me! Our house is 2018 built, we moved in a year ago and there are no drawers apart from three large drawers under the hob. Everything else is just cupboard. I don’t think I’d like a drawer between every cupboard and worktop but instead it would be nice to have just one unit that is 3 drawers of varying depths.

They're usually deeper drawers now and a seperate unit to the cupboards. Some have pan drawers

I think we bought the last kitchen where this was a thing. I love them. Its 6 years old. We still have pan drawers too.

I'm so pleased to see so many strong opinions for/against 😂

I'll be measuring the height of my cupboards when I get home because I swear they're not functionally any smaller with the drawers above 😂

We had designs drawn up for a new kitchen about 6 months ago and there were no drawers at all in the first design! My initial comment to DH was "where will our cutlery go?"

So they replaced one of the cupboards in the design with a drawer unit - but even than ends up wasting space as the shallowest drawer is still too deep for cutlery.

Our house was built late 90s and has drawers above cabinets.

We have two drawer units - one 600 mm and the other 300 mm. Both have a deep drawer and three shallow drawers.

In my kitchen, I don't think a drawer above each cupboard would work. We have the washer and dryer, sink unit, dishwasher and two corner units that couldn't accommodate drawers. We have one cupboard where you could put a drawer, but then it would probably not work aesthetically, and certainly not necessary.

hmm.... not sure where you've been looking OP, but surely you design your kitchen according to your preferences? I had a new kitchen done last year and when I was looking around there were certainly drawer options and I designed mine to have masses of drawers as I prefer them to cabinets....

@therealcookiemonster oh I'm not concerned about not being able to have them, I was just browsing through inspiration images and realised that, at some point, they've become a lot less common than they used to be! Whole drawer units do seem to have taken over (and rightly so, they can be so handy!)

A random Thursday musing when I should be working 😂

@Stephisaur aaah that makes more sense now. Well yes once one starts to design a kitchen, it can take over the brain quite quickly. May I reccommend a 'magic corner cupboard', this has been a life saver for me as well as the boiling water tap. and yes dedicated drawer units are far more helpful than cupboards. especially those deep drawers for pans especially if you buy those ikea drawer organisers. I also went for a dedicated spice drawer which has been very handy.

depending on space, an appliance cupboard with a plug socket inside can be handy for those appliances you want to use regularly but hideaway...

Well if it is an alternate opinion you are after I designed my last kitchen completely differently from the norm. I personally dislike standardized kitchens and hate opening/ closing numerous doors in search of the missing bowl or gadget. I also did not like all those drawers taking up space when being opened. I only like small waist high drawers because otherwise all kinds of crap end up in them.
So I pulled out the relatively new model and replaced it with one very tall and imposing 2 door armoir ( blonde walnut with finish removed and left brute).
I put in a huge walk-in pantry with built in shelves where I stored all dry goods, bottles, small appliances, large serving and decorative pieces. I hate things on the floor , so only a hoover. Everything else along one wall of kitchen with slate countertops. Casein painted cupboards underneath. Walls also in pale verdigris Italian stuc. All stainless appliances and hi tech lighting . Sorry no photo!

@Whataretalkingabout that sounds amazing, gutted you don't have a photo - would love to see it, particularly the armoir which sounds gorgeous!

Like many other people these days we chose to have mainly drawers when we designed the kitchen for our current house (actually we purchased the cabinets from HMKOC for our previous house back in 2015, but hadn't fitted them when we decided to move). I absolutely love having so many drawers - it's revolutionary imho.

We added a huge - almost ceiling height and we have very high ceilings - Victorian larder found on ebay to complement the drawers. This has three tall doors with three shorter ones over and has multiple shelves. Virtually all our food supplies are kept in that and there's also space for the microwave as i hate seeing these on the worktop. I'll miss it when we sell!

But when we were choosing a kitchen for the three houses before that (1997, 2008 and 2012) they all had drawers above the cupboards. Didn't they used to be known as 'drawer line cupboards'?