Bulk storage at counter height: the cheapest cubic foot in the kitchen
Reviewed September 2026 · Captivating Cabinets
Take a wide two-door base, delete the drawer across the top, and you have the least glamorous and most efficient box Fabuwood makes. Galaxy Frost full height double door bases run 24″ to 39″ wide, and per inch of enclosed storage at counter height nothing else in the catalog comes close.
Three ways to buy 36 inches of wall
The clearest way to see what these are for is to price the same stretch of wall three ways and divide by the inches.
| Cabinet | What it gives you | Price | Per inch |
|---|---|---|---|
| GF B36FD | Two full-height doors, one open interior | $490.75 | $13.63 |
| GF B36 | Two doors plus two drawers over them | $676.00 | $18.78 |
| GF DB36 | Three drawers, full extension, top to bottom | $1,030.25 | $28.62 |
Drawers cost more than twice as much per inch as doors, and they are worth it where you use them daily — that is not the argument here. The argument is that a kitchen has bulk in it: the slow cooker, the pressure cooker, the roasting tin, the party platters, the bulk paper goods. Paying drawer money to store a roasting tin you use twice a year is how a cabinet budget disappears.
The saving grows with width, too. Deleting the drawer costs you $74.75 at 27″ and $191.75 at 39″ — because a wider drawer is a more expensive drawer. Full widths and prices for both versions are on the two-door base page. All the numbers here are discounted prices as of the review date at the top of this article, not list.
Pair them with drawers rather than against them
The way this is specified well is not "doors or drawers", it is division of labour. The working run — either side of the range, either side of the sink, wherever you stand and cook — goes to drawer banks, because that is where reach matters and where you open a cabinet twenty times a day. Then the bulk goes into two or three wide full-height boxes somewhere you walk to rather than stand at: the far end of the run, the back of the island, the wall by the fridge, the length of a peninsula.
Costed out, that mix is why the approach works. Swap two GF DB36 drawer banks for two GF B36FD boxes in the bulk positions and you free up about $1,079 — which buys the lazy Susan in the corner and a proper waste unit, both of which you will notice every day. Storage volume goes up, not down.
- The appliance garage — a 24″ or 30″ box with a receptacle inside, so the mixer, grinder and air fryer live plugged in behind a door that closes
- Double waste and recycling — a 30″ or 33″ box takes a two-bin unit; use a floor- or beam-mounted frame, not a door-mounted one, on a two-door cabinet
- Small-appliance parking — the things too tall for a drawer and too ugly for the counter
- Island and peninsula backs — bulk storage reached from the dining side rather than the cooking side
The appliance garage has one prerequisite people forget: the outlet has to be inside the box, and the electrician needs to know before the countertop is set. Drilling a finished cabinet back after the slab is down is a bad afternoon and a visible repair. Decide it at rough-in.
The wide shallow boxes, and the back-to-back trick
Five SKUs here are 12″ deep rather than 24″: GF B24FD-12D through GF B36FD-12D, at $396.50 to $477.75. Nobody publishes anything about them, so here is what they are good at. A 36″ box at 12″ deep gives you a wide, shallow, everything-visible cupboard at counter height — glassware, cookbooks, the good plates, a row of small appliances on one shelf. Nothing hides at the back, because there is no back to hide in.
Two ordering facts to carry with you. First, the shallow versions stop at 36″; there is no 39″ and no 42″. Second, they cost almost the same as the full-depth boxes — GF B36FD-12D is $477.75 against $490.75 for GF B36FD, a $13 difference. Shallow is a clearance decision, never a budget one.
The trick worth knowing: two shallow boxes placed back to back give you a 24″-deep peninsula with doors on both faces, so the kitchen side and the dining side each get their own cupboard instead of one deep cavern reachable from one end. It costs about double — $955.50 against $490.75 at 36″ — so only do it where both sides are genuinely used. And it needs the peninsula drawn as two runs from the start, which is exactly the kind of thing a free 3D design sorts out before anything is ordered.
Where the range stops, and what to do about it
Full-height doors end at 39″ (GF B39FD). Above that the only two-door bases made are GF B42 and GF B48, both with a drawer across the top. If you have drawn a 48″ full-height cabinet, you will need to either accept the drawer, drop to 39″ and take up the rest with a filler or a narrow box, or split the opening into two cabinets.
That ceiling is not arbitrary. A door on a 42″ box would be 21″ wide and would carry its own weight on two hinges for the life of the kitchen; wide, tall, unbroken doors are also where a painted shaker is most likely to show a seasonal movement. Fabuwood draws the line at 39″, and it is a sensible line. What you get instead at those widths is the drawer, which is not a bad consolation.
Everything on this page arrives assembled with the doors hung and the Blum soft-close hinges already adjusted, which for a 39″ box means a heavy carton and a real delivery path. Measure the doorway and the turn before the truck comes — our pre-assembled cabinets guide covers what install day actually looks like.
If this is not the box you want
Narrower, or you want the drawer back? One of the other three pages has your cabinet.
| Page | What it is | Pick it when |
|---|---|---|
| Single door base | 9″–21″, one door, top drawer on the plain B | The run is narrower than 24″, or you want one clear opening for a pull-out |
| Double door base | 24″–48″, two doors, top drawer on the plain B | One wide box instead of two narrow ones, and you have the aisle for two swinging doors |
| Full height single door base | 9″–21″, one door, no drawer (the FD suffix) | Something tall lives there, or you want a run of doors with no drawer seam |
For the working end of the kitchen, look at the three-drawer bases instead, and for the two spots neither doors nor drawers solve, the sink bases and corner cabinets. The whole finish, from toe kick to crown, is on the collection page.
Common questions
- How wide do these go?
- Twenty-four inches to thirty-nine inches, in 3″ steps. Above 39″ the only two-door bases Fabuwood makes are GF B42 and GF B48, both with a drawer across the top, so a 42″ or 48″ run of pure doors is not available in this line.
- Are they cheaper than drawer bases?
- Substantially. At 36″ wide the full-height door box is $490.75 against $1,030.25 for the three-drawer version — $13.63 per inch against $28.62. Use drawers where you stand and cook, and these where bulk lives.
- Can I build an appliance garage in one?
- Yes, and a 24″ or 30″ box is the usual size for it. The one thing to arrange early is a receptacle inside the cabinet — the electrician needs to know at rough-in, because drilling the back after the countertop is set is an ugly repair.
- What is the 12-inch-deep version for?
- Peninsula and island backs, tight galleys, laundry and butler’s pass walls — anywhere you want counter-height storage without giving up floor clearance. It runs 24″ to 36″ wide and costs within about $13 of the full-depth box, so choose it on the plan rather than the price.
- How much clearance do the doors need?
- Roughly half the cabinet width per door — about 19½″ on a 39″ box. Two of these facing each other across a 42″ galley leaves only 3″ between open doors, so check the aisle at your widest cabinet before ordering.
- Should the whole kitchen use them?
- No. Keep at least one drawer bank within reach of the cooktop and one near the sink for utensils, foil and everyday small items. These are for the bulk you walk to, not the things you grab mid-cook.
Keep reading
The guides behind the numbers on this page.
- Types of Base Cabinets: Sizes and Standard Dimensions
How the wide door box compares with drawers, sinks and corners.
- Space-Saving Cabinet Solutions
Roll-outs and waste units for a deep, wide interior.
- Kitchen Island Clearance Guide
Clearance for two doors that open nineteen inches each.
- Important Kitchen Dimensions Before Buying Cabinets
Measure these before a peninsula gets a shallow back.
- How to Read Cabinet SKU Codes
What FD and -12D actually mean on a Fabuwood order.
- How Much Do Fabuwood Cabinets Cost?
Where these boxes sit inside a whole-kitchen number.
- Why Blum Soft-Close Hinges Are Worth the Investment
The hardware carrying a wide, tall, heavy door.
- Pre-Assembled Kitchen Cabinets: A Dealer’s Buying Guide
What a 39-inch assembled box needs on delivery day.
