Kitchen

[rolen]

I have read so much lately that when redoing a kitchen the smart thing to do is to have the upper cabinets be the taller height of 42" instead of the more normal 36" height. Listening to designers talk on TV or reading about it, it made sense as they would certainly provide more storage.

We recently stayed in a vacation home that had the 42" kitchen wall cabinets. And yes they did have more area for storage, but it was so difficult to imagine getting anything off those high shelves for any kind of everyday use. I could not reach anything on the third highest shelf and there is no way I could ever get anything from the highest shelf without a ladder. One section of cabinets was mounted on the wall over a breakfast bar. We all agreed that because of the width of the breakfast bar, the only way to access the top two shelves was to literally stand on the countertop.

To those of you that have these tall cabinets - do you use the top shelves for storing things that rarely get used? How do you access the high shelves? Do you feel that these tall cabinets are practical?