Many a small kitchen has a modest footprint but lots of room in the vertical direction. This especially goes for old houses and apartments where ceilings were built higher a century ago than today's standard eight feet. Which leads us to the upper upper cabinet: a great idea for squeezing in some extra storage if you have high kitchen ceilings:
Of course, this isn't where you want to store your everday kitchen goods. It will take a ladder or a friend to help you reach this high, which means such cabinets are reserved for seasonal items, lesser-used cookware and the like.
Do you have second-tier upper cabinets in your kitchen? Do you find them helpful? And what do you store there?
Related: Double Decker Kitchen Cabinets
(Images: Nancy Boszhardt, Attic Mag, Canadian House & Home, Doesn't Cost the Earth, HomeCraft Cabinetry)
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We have them in our 1916 built mill house. They are certainly used for things like our roasting rack and less used tart pans. Also, jars, pitchers, and some other occasional/seasonal items. At 5'3" though, I used a step stool to stand on the counter to reach those cabinets. I much prefer them to wasted open space above kitchen cabinets.
We have one, above our fridge, and we just discussed taking it out. It is too small for any pots or pans, so we just store dry goods there that we ultimately forget about and buy new of. Plus, it comes down so low there is only one fridge in the whole world that fits!
The upper upper's and definitely reserved for things like excess empty canning jars, less used drink pitchers, cooking utensils, pastry tools and baking pans.
There is actually still a lot of space to store stuff in our small kitchen, it's just all up high.
What a beautiful kitchen. Upper cabinets are great for seasonal items, items rarely used, etc. Such a smart use of space.
I love mine for seasonal items,extra mason jars, vases, and extra china. They seem more natural than other people's open dusty gaps between ceiling and upper cabinets. That first kitchen is to die for!!!
this is a great idea, since i hate cluttering that ~1ft gap between upper cabinets and 8' ceiling, but our kitchen is so small we need the space. i'm trying to plan a way to rearrange the cabinets (new ones not in the budget), add some open shelving and hopefully free up the closet we've been using as a pantry, since it's the only closet on the first floor. you'd think whoever "designed" the house would have thought of this stuff..
I don't have them in my current kitchen but my husband and I are planning our next house, at 1000 sq. ft. and every inch will count. I'm definitely will have cabinets to the ceiling because I will need every square inch for storage.
Another plus--no more cleaning the tops of your cabinets (not that I ever would)
...we're in an apartment with a tiny, narrow galley kitchen and I'm storing things in that gap between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling -dust is an issue and I have to stand on the counters to reach things when we do need them.
I love the upper upper cabinets and have them in my idea file for when we move into our own house... I saw an idea on the DIY Network (my hubs' fave!) to move up existing cabinets, leaving just enough space on top for crown molding, then building a little extra storage underneath, where you've made space. O and thanks for making me laugh this morning Charlotte!
we have upper uppers in our new kitchen here in brooklyn. since we had such high ceilings and not the biggest floor plan in the world it made sense.
we also gained a ton of space over the fridge by building out thew cabinets a bit so the fridge looked more 'built in'...hence a very deep cabinet above it which i love!
http://designsmitten.blogspot.com/2011/04/k-i-t-c-h-e-n-d-o-n-e.html