17 Cabinet Upgrades You Can’t Live Without
Our Austin Architects Share Our 17 Favorite Cabinet Upgrades to Improve Your Home’s Storage and Your Life
If your kitchen, laundry room, or bathrooms feel like they’re busting at the seams, you may not necessarily need more space but rather upgraded storage solutions. Whether you’re looking to finally win the battle against the messy junk drawer or improve your morning routine, there’s a cabinet upgrade for you. Our Austin architects share our favorite cabinet upgrades for the kitchen, butler’s pantry, mudroom, bathroom, and every storage space in between. You’ll wonder how you ever survived without them!
Top 17 Cabinet Upgrades to Consider for Your Home
In addition to sharing some of our favorite custom cabinet ideas, we’re also giving you links to our favorite Rev-A-Shelf products so you can test them out yourself!
Cabinet Upgrades for the Kitchen and Butler’s Pantry…
The key to a functional kitchen design is knowing the right storage solutions. Here are some of our favorite kitchen cabinet upgrades:
1. Knife Block and Utensil-bin Pullouts
Knife block and utensil-bin pullouts provide an accessible and safe way to store your most-used kitchen tools. Our Austin architects like to position these pullouts next to the stove.
2. Waste-bin Pullouts
No one wants to see a trashcan in the middle of their beautiful, new kitchen. Waste-bin pullouts hide the trash while full extensions make it easy to clean up after a night of cooking, and recycling bins can easily be incorporated as well.
3. Mixer Lifts
Small appliances can clutter the counter and take up valuable prep space. Mixer lifts are an effective way to hide the stand mixer when not in use. Plus, the spring-tension lifts make pulling out the machine completely effortless.
4. Lazy Susans
Many kitchen designs are subject to dead corners or awkward corner cabinets, where items instantly become lost in the back. Lazy Susans provide an easy way to organize and access these difficult-to-reach corner storage spaces. Lazy Susans come in many shapes. We often like the half-moon shapes to allow easy access to dead corners!
5. Oil and Spice Pullouts
Shuffling to find your favorite spice blend while cooking over a hot stove can be frustrating. Oil and spice pullouts provide easy access to your favorite seasonings. We like to place these next to the stove opposite the knife block pullout.
6. Cutlery Tray Inserts
Cutlery tray inserts are made to organize your silverware drawer. However, they are also great for sorting small kitchen gadgets and the ever-troublesome junk drawer.
7. Pull-down Appliance Garages
We design custom pull-down appliance garages for many of our Austin architecture clients. These cabinets typically extend to the countertop and provide a way to hide small appliances while keeping them plugged in for easy use. We like to use these in dead corners where a refrigerator or wall oven may be located. This allows items to be easily pulled out for use.
8. Hidden Coffee Bars
Hidden coffee bars are essentially larger appliance garages. Rather than having your coffee pot, espresso machine, and mug collection cluttering the main kitchen counter, hidden coffee bars can be offset and concealed behind retractable pocket doors. This design makes it easy to open and access in the morning and hide away once the day begins.
9. Roll-out Pantries
If you don’t organize your pantry shelves, items can get lost in the back and expire before you have the chance to use them. Roll-out pantries offer an easier way to access those back items with bins and shelves that pull out for a full view.
10. Vertical Cabinet Dividers
These are great for storing trays, cutting boards, baking sheets, and even muffin tins! We typically place these above ovens for easy access. They make a great storage solution for upper cabinets that are hard to access. By having vertical tray dividers, you can easily grab items from the bottom.
Cabinet Upgrades for the Laundry and Mudroom…
Without the right organization, laundry and mudrooms can become messy holding places for the deluge of packages, sports equipment, and bags. Here are some of our favorite storage upgrades to include in these spaces:
11. Tall Drawers for Detergent
We like to create tall drawers in the laundry room space to store detergent easily. You can etch in a space that copies the drawer stack so it looks like two drawers.
12. Ironing Boards in a Drawer
Often, you want an ironing board in the laundry room when there is no wall space for a fold-down board. Instead, there are versions that sit inside a top drawer, which makes it easy to pull out for ironing, and you can completely hide them away when your ironing is done!
13. Broom Closet
Integrating a broom closet within your cabinets is an efficient use of space. We often design them to have an outlet about 42” above the floor for charging full-size or handheld vacuums. You can also store brooms in them. We then like to design half of the broom closet with adjustable shelves to store all of your cleaning products, dust rags, and other small cleaning apparatuses. I believe you hear the angels sing when you open this cabinet because the organization is just that brilliant!
Cabinet Upgrades for the Bathroom…
Upgrade your bathroom cabinetry to speed up your morning routine. Here are a few organizational extras to consider in your design.
14. Pullout Clothes Hampers
Clothes hampers take up valuable floor space, especially in small bathrooms. Pullout hampers conceal the messy appearance and smell of dirty clothes, allowing your bath to feel like a relaxing spa retreat.
15. Vanity Outlet Drawers
It may not feel like it takes a lot of time to plug in your hairdryer in the morning, but sharing a plug for your hairdryer, curling iron, electric toothbrush, and shaver can quickly become frustrating when you’re running late. Vanity outlet drawers allow you to store your essentials while keeping them plugged in. Trust us, this cabinet upgrade is a game-changer for your morning routine!
16. Makeup-tray Organizers
Makeup-tray organizers allow you to store your makeup and toiletries at a glance. They will keep your bathroom drawers neat so you never have to dig to find what you need.
17. Pullout drawers
We often like to incorporate pull-out drawers into bathroom vanities. They are typically on either side of a sink and allow for storage of makeup or beauty products, hair products, brushes, etc.
Selecting the Right Cabinet Upgrades for Your Home
There you have it! These are the top 17 cabinet upgrades our Austin architects can’t live without. However, that doesn’t mean you need all 17 for your home. Get the most out of working with your architect by sharing details about your morning routine, what you like to cook, and how you approach chores. We’re trained to examine the lifestyles of our clients and help them make the best design choices for their homes. Remember, it’s important to convey your needs early in the design process so specialty cabinet upgrades can be included in the cabinet drawings before orders are sent out. If you’re considering upgrading your home’s cabinets, reach out to us. We’d love to help design your space.