As the price of houses and rentals continue to rise, smaller living spaces seem inevitable for most of us. Pan drawers provide the maximum utilisation of space with deeper and higher-sided drawers than traditional cabinetry. You may even opt for in-drawer divisions that separate your pans and lids, for instance.
Keeping your pots and pans organised can be a hassle. Between making sure you can find what you need when you’re cooking to optimising the space you have in your kitchen, it can be a lot of work trying to keep things in place. While cupboards are the classic option, pan drawers are slowly becoming more popular for a very good reason.
Pan drawers are worth installing in your kitchen because they’re an easy way to keep your cookware organised. They allow you to see everything you have easily, and they’re optimal because they use every inch of space rather than leaving open gaps in hard-to-reach places.
Unlike kitchen cupboards, pan drawers are easy to organise and clean from a comfortable height. Best of all, you don’t need to forgo aesthetics just to clear up your busy kitchen, as pan drawers still provide classic clean lines in your kitchen design.
There’s nothing worse than feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of cookware in your kitchen space. If you don’t already have pan drawers in your kitchen, you might wonder if it is worth the extra cost to upgrade your space? Please read on to explore how these drawer systems can change your kitchen space and help you decide if installing them is the best choice for you.
What Is a Pan Drawer?
Before you decide if you should install pan drawers in your kitchen, it’s important you know what a pan drawer is and how it differs from a regular drawer you’d use for storage.
While typical drawers and pan drawers might seem like they should be close to the same thing, they’re actually quite different in a few notable ways.
A regular drawer is usually shallow, meaning you can only store small items in them. They also may vary in how long they are.
A pan drawer is a deep drawer installed under a kitchen counter. It can be as deep as the entire counter, but they are more often as deep as 1/3 to 1/2 of a counter’s height. When closed, they take up the entire space between the wall and the edge of your counter, the same way a cupboard would.
Since pan drawers are deeper than traditional drawers, you can store larger and taller items in them, like pots and pans. While you can store other items in a pan drawer, with many people using them as tablecloth storage or as a sort of pantry, their name does give away their initial purpose.
What Does a Pan Drawer Do?
Pan drawers organise pots, pans, and lids so that they’re easy to see and access. The drawers slide open and present all the items to view in one easy motion and eliminate the need to scratch for the item you seek. They are also deeper than regular drawers and hold more things.
Pan drawers allow you to save space in your kitchen because you can fully utilise your drawers to organise your pots and pans.
You may enjoy this video with ways on the different ways you can organise your kitchen drawer:
Can You Have More Than One Pan Drawer?
You can have more than one pan drawer because it is an excellent organisational tool for multiple kitchen utensils and other necessities. While it’s true that pan drawers are larger and deeper than regular drawers, you can still install multiple pan drawers.
In fact, many companies sell pan drawer units that include multiple drawers of varying depths for different sorts of pots and pans.
What’s important is that you make sure you’re aware of the weight limit of your pan drawer unit.
You don’t want to overload your drawers, or you can risk breaking them by damaging their sliding track.
Can I Store More Than Pans in My Pan Drawer?
You can store more than pans in a pan drawer, as they are versatile and flexible. That might be why they were initially invented and marketed, but you can keep whatever you want in your pan drawers, including plates, pantry items, and spices.
Some people enjoy storing their tablecloths and kitchen rags in these drawers because their depth allows you to store folded items without getting them wrinkled or bunched together. Some people store their dishes in these drawers, so they’re easily accessible and kept safe and secure.
Other people like to use these drawers as a pantry, particularly for items they often use.
This system is an excellent option if you don’t have much counter, wall, or shelf space. You can even buy drawer dividers and organisers to use your pan drawers for multiple purposes.
A pan drawer with special divisions for spices is ever-so handy next to your cooking area and keeps them neatly in reach while you create your culinary delights.
As long as you don’t put more weight in your drawers than they can handle, you can store whatever you want in pan drawers. The options are endless.
Do I Need a Pan Drawer?
You need a pan drawer if your kitchen appears cluttered and you struggle to find items easily. If you find yourself stacking up cookware in piles or unpacking your cupboards to reach certain items, pan drawers are the best solution for organising your kitchenware.
If your kitchen is laid out with everything you need neatly in reach, you might be happy with your cabinet system. Unfortunately, most kitchens suffer from an overabundance of miscellaneous objects, which are necessary but not used very often. If that is the case, you might need a set or two of pan drawers.
Other Reasons Why You Might Need Pan Drawers
- You can’t seem to keep your cabinets organised.
- You always forget what you have because you only focus on what is right in front of you.
- You feel like you’re running out of places to store your cooking supplies.
- You have a smaller kitchen and want to optimise the space better.
- You have too many pots, pans, and lids for proper cabinet or hanging storage to work.
- You worry about lifting heavy items out of higher cabinets.
- You find yourself having to take out multiple items to reach the item you need.
Are Pan Drawers Easier Than Cupboards?
Pan drawers are easier than cupboards because they slide out easily in one motion and present all your cookware in an easy-to-reach manner. Kitchenware often collects in cabinets making items hard to find or access. Pan drawers eliminate clutter making your kitchen space easier to manage.
What cabinets have going for them is their versatility in where they can be installed because they can be placed higher up or as base cabinets under your counter. Unfortunately, that’s not a viable option for drawer installation because drawers are only helpful if you can look down into them, which you can’t do if they’re high up.
However, as far as base cabinets are concerned, drawers may be the better option in most cases. Drawers save room because they allow you to see everything you store in them, and you won’t land up on your hands and knees trying to find an item hidden behind a multitude of other items.
That’s because you can install different inserts or even use boxes and other organisational tools to keep things separated more practically than in cabinets. People with mobility problems might also find drawers to be more accessible.
Are Pan Drawers Worth Having?
Pan drawers are worth having as they maximise your kitchen space and organise your kitchenware in an easy-to-access area. They also eliminate the need to dig through cabinets to reach cookware at the back of the unit. As a bonus, pan drawers offer a sleek look to your kitchen.
Kitchens can often become cluttered, with a wide variety of utensils and cookware that are not often used. Cluttered kitchens are hard to clean and often appear messy even when they are clean. Pan drawers are the most space-effective means to declutter your kitchen into a clean and organised space.
With the old-fashioned cabinet system, often, one has to crouch down and struggle to reach through the clutter to find what we need. When a pan drawer is opened, one has instant access to the required item at the moment without having to fuss and scratch about in your cupboards.
Pan drawer designs are highly flexible, and you may finally use odd spaces like corners or underutilised areas of your kitchen. Pan drawers are not limited to pots and pans. If their weight capacity is strong enough, they can accommodate your spices, crockery, pantry items, and even kitchen appliances.
Hi all! I’m Cora Benson, and I’ve been blogging about food, recipes and things that happen in my kitchen since 2019.