This past December, I redesigned our master closet and replaced it with Elfa closet components. (And the angels sang!) Then, we replaced our kitchen countertops and we loved the result!
We weren't sure what to tackle next, but for years we had both been frustrated with...
the inside of our kitchen cabinets. They weren't disorganized, but it's always been a pain to reach anything in the back. I'm sure you can relate. So after three or four long seconds of consideration, we decided THAT would be our next dragon to slay. One of the biggest problems is that our kitchen has two lower corner cabinets, each with a small door, yet the actual cabinet space is huge, extending waaaay back around the corner where no human being can see (it's too dark) or reach without practically climbing INSIDE. Until now, that's exactly what I had to do in order to reach anything not stored directly behind the door.
Tired of fighting to keep those cabinets organized and the items accessible, I reached out to my friends at ShelfGenie to see what could be done. They came out and installed Glide-Out shelves in all my lower cabinets, including THE coolest one called a "blind corner" in both the corner cabinets. Not only can I SEE everything that's in my cabinets now -- even the stuff that used to be way back in the dark corners -- I can REACH it too! Hallelujah!
Here are the before and after pictures, along with a few reasons YOU should consider getting them too if your cabinets make you crazy.
Okay, these are the BEFORE shots. You can see the cabinets aren't super-disorganized. I did keep them pretty neat but as I mentioned, I just couldn't reach anything in the two lower corner cabinets. I also had to hang my colander and small strainer on the inside of the doors because there wasn't enough room on the shelves. Another issue, which you can see is that the UPPER shelves were those silly half-depth shelves that so many cabinets have.
I guess that's so you can store taller stuff up front, but I didn't care for them.
Here are the AFTER pictures (below). You can see that in the double cabinet, I now have two FULL size shelves and the center divider (called a stile) has been removed and attached to the door. Replacing the small upper shelf with a full size Glide-Out gives me about two more square feet of storage. Another thing I love is that when I want a heavy pot from the back of the cabinet, it glides right out to where I am, so I can reach it from the top, just as if it were in a drawer. I love that! It's great for people with back problems, or older folks who don't dig getting down on the floor to store and retrieve cookware.
So yes, I love my double cabinet Glide-Out, but also, be sure to notice how the blind-corner Glide-Out works in the problem corner cabinets. There are two gliding shelves on the bottom level of the left cabinet, and a single one on top. In the right cabinet, I opted for two full layers of shelving.
You can see how the shelf directly behind the door panel pulls STRAIGHT OUT toward me, and once that shelf is fully extended, there's room for the one behind it (where the Crockpot is) to glide ACROSS, giving me access to the items on it. It works the same in the right hand corner cabinet too. You can see that the front lower shelf that holds most of my containers is fully extended, and the shelf behind slides fully across so I can reach the items there too. It is SO cool! I no longer have to worry about crawling deep inside those dark unreachable corners or forgetting what's back there. Sweet!
Another bonus of the Glide-Out shelves is that they are all full-extension, which means they come out from the cabinet 100% of their depth, ensuring you can always reach everything, and they are incredibly strong, holding up to 100 pounds of weight each! I don't have anything even close to that heavy in my cabinets, but if you have a KitchenAid mixer or other heavy appliances all on the same shelf, knowing their strength rating should put your mind at ease. Glide-Outs are also super-effective in pantries, and if your pantry's fixed shelves are limiting its functionality, in many cases the Glide-Outs can nearly double your pantry storage capacity!
The kitchen is one of the most heavily used rooms in the house, and any improvements you make there will serve you daily. Because of the Glide-Out's high quality,their lifetime warranty, and the way they make it easy to store and retrieve the things you use most often, I believe Shelf Genie Glide-Outs are one of the best investments you can make in your home.
