Kitchen Cabinet Organizers: Pull-Out Shelves, Roll-Outs and What Fits Where

The kitchen cabinet organizers that pay for themselves are the ones that bring the back of a cabinet to you: roll-out trays behind base doors, pull-out shelves in a tall pantry, a narrow pull-out for spices or baking sheets, and a lift or pull-down where reaching is the problem. Order them with the cabinet when you can: the tray is sized to the box, installation is part of the price on the lines that offer it, and nobody has to drill into a new cabinet to hang it.

We sell cabinets and build kitchens, and the storage complaint we hear most is not "I need more cabinets." It is "I can't see what's in the ones I have." This guide goes cabinet by cabinet, with real SKUs, tray sizes, weight ratings and prices from the lines we carry, how to measure for a retrofit kit, and the order to plan things in. Organizers that sit inside a drawer, such as cutlery trays and peg boards, have their own guide: kitchen drawer organizer ideas and inserts.

Key Takeaways

• Start with the cabinet, not the gadget. Roll-outs need a door base, spice pull-outs a 9″ full-height-door base or a filler gap, a mixer lift an 18″ full-height-door base.
• Trays are narrower than the cabinet. On the lines we carry, a roll-out runs 4 to 5 inches narrower than the cabinet's nominal width.
• Weight ratings vary a lot. Fabuwood's Blum roll-outs list a 100 lb static load; US Cabinet Depot's side-mount roll-out shelves recommend 35 lb.
• Factory beats retrofit on a new kitchen. Fabuwood includes installation in each roll-out's price when it's ordered on a cabinet; a retrofit means measuring, clearing hinges and checking your warranty.
• Typical adds: $188.50–$286.00 per Fabuwood Galaxy roll-out tray, about $69–$99 per tray in a US Cabinet Depot roll-out kit, $91.00 to shorten a tray for a 12″-deep pantry.

Table of Contents

• Kitchen Cabinet Organizers by Cabinet Type
• Roll-Out Trays Behind Base Cabinet Doors
• Pull-Out Pantry Shelves in Tall Cabinets
• Pots and Pans: Where the Heavy Stuff Should Live
• Spice Organizers for Cabinets: Five Places They Fit
• Baking Sheets and Cutting Boards: Tray Dividers
• Wall Cabinets: Pull-Downs and Filler Pull-Outs
• Mixer Lifts
• Corners, Trash and Wine, Briefly
• Ordered With the Cabinet or a Retrofit Kit?
• Measuring a Cabinet Opening for a Pull-Out
• How Do You Organize Kitchen Cabinets? A Cabinet-by-Cabinet Plan
• What It Costs in an Example Kitchen
• Frequently Asked Questions

Kitchen Cabinet Organizers by Cabinet Type

Every organizer needs a particular kind of box around it. Prices are our current Fabuwood Galaxy prices unless another line is named (US Cabinet Depot prices are our RTA prices), and exclude the cabinet unless marked "with cabinet."

Two things in that table surprise people. First, several organizers only work in a full-height-door base (no drawer on top), because the pull-out needs the whole height of the opening. Fabuwood's spec book says so on its SPO-B, TDPO and UKBPO base pull-outs, and the mixer lift "will not work in a door/drawer configuration." Second, the cheapest spot for a spice pull-out is often a filler gap, not a cabinet. Our guide to types of base cabinets explains the door-base, drawer-base and full-height-door options if the names are new.

Roll-Out Trays Behind Base Cabinet Doors

A roll-out tray is a shallow drawer box, usually about 3½ to 4 inches tall, that sits behind a cabinet door on its own slides. It turns a 24-inch-deep base from a cave into two or three shelves you can see the back of, and it's the organizer we'd put in almost every kitchen. The details differ more by line than most buyers expect; here are the four framed lines we carry that publish tray specs:

Sources: each maker's spec book, starting with the Fabuwood Allure spec book; the KCD, US Cabinet Depot and J&K books are on the same spec book page. Frameless Fabuwood Illume uses a different tray altogether: Blum MERIVOBOX metal roll-outs with full-extension soft-close slides and a 75 lb static rating, per Fabuwood's Illume price book. Illume roll-outs aren't listed on our site, so ask us to quote them.

Partial or full extension

On Fabuwood, the E tray travels about 80% of its length, so the last few inches stay inside the cabinet. That's fine for paper towels and frustrating for cans. The H version runs $45.50 to $52.00 more per tray. Our rule of thumb: pay for H on the bottom tray of any base and on every pantry tray, and save the money on upper trays that hold light, tall things you grab from the front anyway. Our drawer slide guide explains why side-mount and concealed slides feel different.

Drawer-over-door bases versus full-height doors

A standard base cabinet has a drawer on top and a door below, which leaves room for one or two trays under the drawer. A full-height-door base gives the whole interior to trays: three is comfortable, and the bottom one can be tall-item storage with no tray at all. Fabuwood's B18FD is $373.75 in Galaxy; two ROD-B18 BLUM H trays add $500.50, so a fully fitted 18-inch base is $874.25. Weighing that against a three-drawer base? The roll-out section of our Fabuwood accessories guide runs the price comparison width by width, and our drawer base cabinet guide covers the drawer side of that choice.

Two-door bases and the center stile

A 30″ or 36″ base has two doors, and both must be open before a full-width tray can come out. On Fabuwood's 42″ and 48″ bases there is also a 3″ center stile between the doors, so a single tray cannot span the opening. Trays go in as a pair side by side, and the spec book adds a ROD-SPECIAL installation charge ($117.00) for that. US Cabinet Depot's four-door utility cabinets have the same two-door issue: its 24″ unit's roll-outs are 19½″ wide and sit behind a pair of 11¾″ doors.

Pull-Out Pantry Shelves in Tall Cabinets

A 24-inch-deep pantry shelf holds three or four rows of cans, and only the front row gets used. Pull-out pantry shelves fix that by turning the lower half of the pantry into trays. Our pantry cabinet sizes and costs guide covers heights, depths and what ships in each box; this section is about fitting the trays.

On the lines we carry there are three ways to get them:

• Add trays to a Fabuwood pantry. The spec book says roll-out drawers "can also be used with Pantries," so an ROD-B24 tray fits a 24″-wide pantry. A TP242484 (24″ × 84″, 24″ deep) is $1,270.75 in Galaxy; four ROD-B24 BLUM H trays add $1,053.00, for $2,323.75. The upper section keeps its loose shelves.
• Buy a roll-out kit cabinet. US Cabinet Depot sells its utility cabinets in a "rollout shelf" version. In Shaker White the 24″ four-door U248424 is $798.60 and the U2484244RS kit with four roll-outs is $1,118.92, a $320.32 difference, or about $80 a tray. The trays sit behind the 49¼″-tall lower doors.
• Order a tray kit for the pantry. KCD's YN-ROT18-SC and YN-ROT24-SC kits, two trays and four tracks each, are listed as fitting its 18″ and 24″ pantries at 84″, 90″ and 96″; the 30″ kit fits the 90″ and 96″ P30 pantries. Two kits make four trays. KCD cabinets aren't sold on our site, so ask us to quote them.

Spacing, depth and the 12-inch pantry

Space the trays for what goes on them, not evenly. This is our rule of thumb from kitchens we have built, not a manufacturer spec: about 6 to 7 inches between trays for cans and jars, 10 to 12 inches for cereal boxes and bags, and the tallest gap at the bottom for a stockpot, a case of water or a bag of rice. Fabuwood's trays move on pre-drilled height positions, so you can change your mind after move-in; US Cabinet Depot's go where the line drawing puts them.

A 12-inch-deep pantry can take trays too, but they have to be cut down. Fabuwood's spec book says a tray in its 12″-deep pantry will incur a CUT-ROD modification ($91.00 per tray in Galaxy), and that a tray trimmed from the back no longer has a dovetailed back panel. In a 12-inch pantry everything is already one or two rows deep, so we usually leave the shelves fixed and spend that money on trays in the deep base cabinets instead.

What about a tall pull-out pantry unit?

A "pull-out pantry" in the other sense, a tall narrow rack that slides out as one unit, does not appear in any of the spec books we publish; they list pantry roll-out trays only. The narrow base pull-outs below do the same job at counter height. For floor-to-ceiling storage in a 6- to 12-inch gap beside the refrigerator, ask us to quote it and we'll check our other lines.

Pots and Pans: Where the Heavy Stuff Should Live

There are four good answers to the pots and pans organizer for cabinet question, and one bad one: a fixed shelf, where every skillet sits on another and the lids slide into the back corner.

Weight is the deciding factor. A cast-iron skillet and a Dutch oven together can pass 20 pounds, which is fine on a Fabuwood Blum tray rated for 100 lb and more than half the load of a roll-out recommended for 35. Put the heaviest pieces on the bottom tray. If the plan has room for only one cookware cabinet, put it beside the range rather than under a cooktop, where the cutout and wiring limit what fits.

Spice Organizers for Cabinets: Five Places They Fit

The cabinet-level spice options in our catalogs, roughly cheapest first:

1. A filler gap at the base. Fabuwood's SPO-BF3 slides into a 3″ space between two base cabinets: $334.75 on ball-bearing slides or $585.00 with Blum soft-close, plus the BF3 filler ($26.00) it needs. The 6″ SPO-BF6 is $380.25 ($695.50 with Blum). Both install on site between two cabinets, have chrome rails, and are marked not for ADA use.
2. A filler gap between wall cabinets. The SPO-WF series does the same thing at eye level, from SPO-WF330 (3″ × 30″, $380.25) to SPO-WF642 (6″ × 42″, $497.25), on ball-bearing slides without soft-close. Labels sit at eye level, away from the cooktop's heat.
3. A door-mounted rack. KCD lists spice rack door attachments, YN-SRD12 and YN-SRD15, 24″ tall and 4″ deep, for 18″ and 21″ doors (not sold on our site; ask us to quote). It's the least invasive option; check that the shelf behind the door is set back far enough for the rack to clear when the door closes.
4. A 9-inch base pull-out. The classic pull-out spice rack for a 9 inch cabinet: Fabuwood SPO-B9 BLUM ($806.00) goes in a B09FD ($273.00) for $1,079.00 together; KCD's YN-SRI9-SC insert fits its B09 on undermount soft-close slides, and J&K's SP09 base comes with three fixed pull-out shelves (ask us to quote either). Fabuwood Illume lists a SPO-B9 ILLUME with two baskets, but it isn't on our site, so that one is a quote too. Expect about six inches of usable width in a framed 9″ box.
5. A spice drawer cabinet. J&K builds spice storage into the box: the BWRC6 base is 6″ wide with five small square drawers, and the WWRC6 is a 30″-wide, 6″-tall, 12″-deep wall unit with five drawers. J&K cabinets aren't sold on our site; ask us to quote.

Of these, the wall filler pull-out is the one we suggest most: it uses space that was going to be a painted strip of wood anyway. Order the filler with it; it isn't included. (Spice inserts that sit in a drawer are in the drawer organizer guide.)

Baking Sheets and Cutting Boards: Tray Dividers

Sheet pans, cutting boards and platters store best on edge, like files, and a tray divider (vertical panels in a narrow base) is one of the cheapest organizers to build in.

• US Cabinet Depot Shaker White: B12TD, a 12″ base with a drawer over a divided compartment, is $304.92. The full-height-door B12FHTD is $389.40, and its dividers are 27″ tall instead of 21″, which gives taller boards and platters room. The 18″ versions include two dividers.
• Fabuwood Galaxy: the TDPO-B9 BLUM tray divider pull-out ($672.75) goes in a B09FD, so the whole set of dividers slides out on soft-close slides rather than staying in the box.
• Fabuwood Illume: BTPO baker tray pull-outs with a metal shelf and two wire racks, from $1,062.75 (BTPO-B12FD ILLUME).

Put the divider cabinet next to the oven, where pans come out hot. A fixed divider (the US Cabinet Depot style) is cheaper and has nothing to wear out; a pull-out divider lets you see what's at the back. The sink base can't take dividers, but its false front can hold a tilt-out tray for sponges; J&K fits those as standard on its sink bases. Our sink base cabinet guide covers the rest of the sink cabinet.

Wall Cabinets: Pull-Downs and Filler Pull-Outs

Upper cabinets are shallow, 12 inches on most lines, so nothing gets lost at the back; the trouble is the top shelf, around six feet up in a standard kitchen. Wall organizers bring things down, not out.

• Pull-down shelves. Of our lines, frameless Fabuwood Illume lists one: PDS-W24 ILLUME ($1,196.00) and PDS-W36 ILLUME ($1,413.75). Each has two chrome wire shelves on a gas-assisted mechanism that pulls down 11½″ and out 16¾″, fits 24″ or 36″ wide wall cabinets 30″, 36″ or 42″ tall, and is rated for 17 lb in Fabuwood's Illume price book (our pricing data lists 26 lb for the 36″). Either way that means glasses, mugs and spices, not a stack of stoneware.
• Filler spice pull-outs (above), the one wall pull-out in the Galaxy book.
• Shelf height. The free organizer. Wall cabinets ship with adjustable shelves; set the lowest one where the shortest regular cook can see the back of it, and give the top shelf to holiday platters.

If anyone in the house cooks from a seated position, pull-downs and lower shelves matter more than any gadget; our ADA kitchen cabinet guide has the reach ranges. Planning a ceiling-height run? The cabinets to the ceiling guide covers the stacked top boxes.

Mixer Lifts

A stand mixer weighs 20-plus pounds, which is why it lives on the counter. A mixer lift is a shelf on a spring-assisted arm that swings the mixer up to counter height and locks there. Fabuwood's MLU-B18 ($1,088.75 in Galaxy) has a 20″ × 11¾″ maple shelf, adjustable spring tension and a 60 lb rating, and fits only the B18FD full-height-door base ($373.75). Fabuwood also makes an Illume version with a walnut shelf (MLU-B18 ILLUME); it isn't on our site, so ask us to quote it. Plan an outlet on the wall above the counter nearby, and check the mixer's footprint against the shelf before ordering. If the mixer is used daily, an appliance garage on the counter may be the simpler answer.

Corners, Trash and Wine, Briefly

Each has its own guide:

• Base corners: a lazy Susan corner cabinet or a blind corner with a pull-out. Sizes and alternatives are in our lazy Susan guide and blind corner guide, and Fabuwood's corner hardware is priced in the Fabuwood accessories guide linked above.
• Trash and recycling: widths, can sizes and placement are in the trash pull-out cabinet guide.
• Wine and stemware: racks, cubbies and stemware rails are in wine storage ideas for kitchen cabinets.
• Odd names: if a product listing calls something a "beam-mounted" or "frame-mounted" pull-out, our beam-mounted pull-out explainer decodes it.

Ordered With the Cabinet or a Retrofit Kit?

Buying new cabinets? Put the organizer on the cabinet order. Keeping the ones you have? A retrofit kit is the only option, and a perfectly good one.

The warranty line is the one to take seriously on a new kitchen. Screwing a slide into a cabinet floor is not the same as cutting a face frame, but the wording is broad, so ask before you drill into a cabinet that's still under warranty. On older cabinets with no warranty left, retrofit away. If you already own cabinets from one of our lines, factory organizers can often be ordered for an installed box; Fabuwood's roll-out listings note an installation guide is available on request.

Renting, or not ready to drill?

Freestanding pieces do part of the job with no screws: a wire shelf riser doubles a stack of plates into two, a turntable keeps oils and condiments in reach at the back of a corner shelf, clear bins with handles act as trays you pull out by hand, and an over-the-door rack holds lids or foil boxes. They don't match a slide-out tray for heavy pots, but they move with you and leave no holes.

Measuring a Cabinet Opening for a Pull-Out

Most retrofit failures come from measuring the inside of the box instead of the opening the tray passes through. Take four numbers with the door fully open:

1. Clear width at the front. On a face-frame cabinet, measure between the stiles, the vertical parts of the frame, at the narrowest point. On a frameless cabinet, measure between the cabinet sides, then subtract whatever the open door and hinge arm stick into the opening.
2. Depth. From the back edge of the face frame (or the front edge of a frameless side) to the back wall of the cabinet, minus any pipes, outlets or a back rail. Most trays for 24″-deep bases are 21″ to 22″ deep.
3. Height. From the cabinet floor to the underside of the drawer rail or top frame. Tray kits list a minimum; leave room for the tallest item you plan to store.
4. Hinge clearance. Open the door and see whether the hinge or door edge crosses the opening. If it does, the tray hits it on the way out. The fixes are a spacer behind the slide at least as thick as the intrusion, a narrower tray, or a zero-protrusion hinge that swings the door edge fully clear of the opening.

Then compare with the tray widths above. In a face-frame cabinet the side walls sit outside the frame opening, so retrofit slides usually mount on spacer blocks or a base frame that brings them flush with the inside of the stile; skip that step and the tray rubs the frame. Frameless cabinets have more usable width but less forgiveness at the door: a door that opens only 90 degrees can block a tray as wide as the box. The two box types are compared in framed vs frameless cabinets and, for the frame itself, our face-frame construction guide.

How Do You Organize Kitchen Cabinets? A Cabinet-by-Cabinet Plan

Buy organizers last. First decide what each cabinet is for, then pick the fitting that makes that job easy. The order we work in:

1. Empty one run at a time. Pull everything out of the bases on one wall, and let go of duplicates and anything unused in a year.
2. Group by task. Cooking, baking, food storage, dishes, cleaning: one pile each.
3. Give each pile a cabinet next to where that task happens, using the table below.
4. Load by weight and use. Heavy pieces low, everyday things between hip and shoulder height, seasonal items up top.
5. Then measure and fit the organizer that suits each cabinet's job.

Here is the plan we use when we lay out a kitchen, box by box:

Don't put trays in every base; four well-chosen bases get most of the benefit. If you're short of cabinets altogether, start with space-saving cabinet solutions.

What It Costs in an Example Kitchen

Here is what the organizers add to an L-shaped kitchen with a 36″ full-height-door base by the range, two 24″ bases, a 9″ and an 18″ full-height-door base, a 24″ tall pantry and a 3″ wall filler. Prices are Fabuwood Galaxy, organizers only; the cabinets are in the plan either way.

The same tray count on a budget line costs far less. In US Cabinet Depot Shaker White, choosing the roll-out version of a 36″ base (two trays), two 24″ bases (two trays each) and a 24″ utility cabinet (four trays) adds $198.44, $320.32 and $320.32, about $839 for ten trays. Those trays run on side-mount ball-bearing slides without soft-close and are recommended to 35 lb, against Blum soft-close slides rated at 100 lb on the Fabuwood trays, so the price gap buys something real. Our kitchen cabinet cost estimator gives a whole-kitchen figure, and the Fabuwood vs US Cabinet Depot comparison covers the rest of the differences between those two lines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are pull-out shelves worth it?

Yes in deep base cabinets and pantries, where they make the back half of a 24-inch-deep box usable. A factory tray costs about $190 to $290 each on Fabuwood Galaxy, or roughly $69 to $99 per tray in a US Cabinet Depot kit. In 12-inch-deep wall cabinets they rarely pay off, because nothing hides there.

Can you add pull-out shelves to existing cabinets?

Yes. Measure the clear opening, depth, height and hinge clearance with the door open, buy a kit sized to that opening, and on a face-frame cabinet mount the slides on spacer blocks so the tray clears the stile. Check your warranty before drilling into a new cabinet.

How do you organize deep kitchen cabinets?

Bring the back to the front. In a 24-inch-deep base or pantry, roll-out trays or pull-out shelves let you see the last row; without them, put tall items at the back and short ones in front, or use clear bins you can lift out like drawers. Save the deepest spots for things used weekly, not daily.

How much weight can a pull-out shelf hold?

It depends on the slide, not the tray. Fabuwood's Blum roll-outs list a 100 lb static load, its frameless Illume MERIVOBOX roll-outs 75 lb, and US Cabinet Depot recommends 35 lb on its side-mount ball-bearing roll-out shelves. Whatever the rating, keep cast iron, Dutch ovens and stockpots on the lowest tray.

Are roll-out shelves better than drawers?

Not always. Drawers take one motion instead of two (open the door, then pull the tray) and usually win in narrow cabinets and beside the range. Roll-out trays suit pantries and tall items, and on Fabuwood boxes they can be moved to new heights later. Many kitchens use drawers by the cooktop and trays everywhere else.

What fits in a 9-inch base cabinet?

A spice pull-out, a tray divider for sheet pans, or a narrow shelf pull-out for oils and bottles; a plain 9″ door base also stores sheet pans on edge. Expect about 6 inches of usable width in a framed 9″ box. Fabuwood's 9″ pull-outs need the B09FD full-height-door base, which has no drawer on top.

How far apart should pantry pull-out shelves be?

Space them for what they hold, not evenly. Our rule of thumb is 6 to 7 inches between trays for cans and jars, 10 to 12 inches for cereal boxes and bags, and the tallest gap at the bottom for a stockpot or a case of water. Fabuwood trays move between pre-drilled heights later.

What is the best way to store pots and pans in a base cabinet?

On full-extension roll-out trays or in a deep drawer base right beside the range, with the heaviest pieces lowest. A two-tier cookware organizer keeps pans and lids apart if you can give it an 18″ or 24″ base. Avoid fixed shelves: every skillet ends up stacked on another and the lids slide to the back.

Do pull-out organizers work in frameless cabinets?

Yes, and they get more width because there's no face frame narrowing the opening. The catch is the door: check that it opens far enough that it doesn't block a tray as wide as the box. Fabuwood's frameless Illume line has its own metal roll-outs sized for its boxes.

How much do kitchen cabinet pull-outs cost?

On Fabuwood Galaxy, a filler spice pull-out starts at $334.75, roll-out trays run $188.50 to $286.00 each, and a mixer lift or two-tier cookware organizer is over $1,000. In our example kitchen above, the essentials came to $1,407.25 and a well-fitted kitchen to $3,133.00, counting the organizers only, not the cabinets.

Plan the Organizers With the Cabinets

The cheapest moment to add an organizer is when the cabinet is ordered: no retrofit, no spacers, no warranty question. Send us your layout or measurements and tell us what bothers you about your current storage. Our kitchen design service returns a 3D layout and an itemized quote with every tray, pull-out and filler listed against the cabinet it goes in. You can also browse the roll-out drawers in the shop, or open the spec books to see every accessory a line offers.

Questions about a specific cabinet or SKU? Write to us with the code on the contact page, or phone 609-900-3358. Our crews install these pull-outs in real kitchens, so ask which ones we'd put in your plan and you'll get a straight answer.