Galaxy Pistachio Green Lazy Susan Base Cabinets

The problem a corner poses is distance: the back of a corner cabinet is further from the opening than the back of any other base, and in a blind box you reach it by leaning in sideways. A turntable removes that distance. Whatever sits at the back comes to the front with a push, so nobody has to put a shoulder into the cabinet. For anyone with a stiff shoulder or a short reach, that alone is worth the money.

What the turntable does not change is how high things sit. These are ordinary 34½″ base cabinets; the upper tray sits below the counter and the lower tray sits a few inches off the floor. Getting to the lower tray still means a squat or a kneel, exactly as it does in any base cabinet. For someone whose trouble is bending rather than reaching, a lazy Susan is half an answer, and planning as though it were a whole one is how an expensive corner ends up used as a single shelf.

The useful yardstick comes from accessibility standards. The ADA sets the unobstructed forward reach range for a seated user at 15″ to 48″ above the floor, and it is a good rough guide for anyone who struggles to bend, seated or not: things between those heights can be reached without getting down, things below 15″ cannot. A base cabinet is almost entirely under 36″, so its whole interior sits in the bottom half of that band — the top tray comfortably inside it, the bottom tray near or below its floor.

Fabuwood does not publish the tray heights, diameters or load limits for these boxes, so we will not print numbers we cannot stand behind; ask us before planning heavy items onto a particular tray. The principle holds whatever the exact figures are. In an accessible kitchen, the top tray is the working shelf and the bottom tray is overflow. That turns the usual advice — heavy things low — on its head for anyone who cannot squat to lift them: the cast-iron pan belongs on the top tray, provided the tray is rated for it.

The same cabinet is a different object to each person who opens it. Before you pay the premium over a fixed-shelf corner, walk through the household:

Two of those rows bring the colour into it, which is the only reason it appears on this page. Open the green door and the inside is not green: the Allure interior is a natural wood veneer, noticeably lighter than the sage outside, and on a turntable that is quietly useful for anyone whose eyesight is not what it was. The contents stand out against pale wood far better than they would against a painted interior. And the pull matters more than it looks. This is a mid-toned, greyed green; a satin-nickel pull sits close to it in tone and nearly disappears, while black or brass reads clearly against it. For a household where somebody needs to find the handle by sight, that is a practical choice, not a styling one.

On an accessible corner, the choice of pull deserves more thought than it usually gets. A bar or D-shaped pull can be hooked with a bent finger or a closed hand; a small knob has to be pinched, which is exactly the grip arthritis takes away first. Longer bars also give a seated user more than one place to take hold. Put the pull where the door starts to move, and try it with the hand that is weaker, not the stronger one.

The hinges are Blum with soft-close, so the door will not slam on fingers, and if the door swings wider than the room allows — into a wheelchair path, say, or against a neighbouring pull — Blum LSB restrictor clips (BLUM-LSB RES CLIP 2PK) are sold in a two-pack at $3.90 under loose parts to limit how far it opens. The same listing carries spare shelves for these boxes: AS-LSB33 at $146.25 and AS-LSB36 at $204.75. Confirm with us exactly what each one replaces before ordering it.

Here is the number that should be on every accessible-kitchen quote. The 36″ drawer base in this finish, GPG DB36, is $1,030.25 — to the cent the price of the LSB33. The 33″ drawer base, GPG DB33, is $955.50. A drawer does what a turntable cannot: on full-extension Blum runners it brings the back of the box out to you at whatever height it sits, and the top drawer of a drawer base sits just under the counter, right in the middle of the reach band. For a person who cannot bend, a stack of drawers is the most usable base cabinet there is.

That does not make the corner pointless. It changes its job. The strongest accessible plan we draw puts drawer bases on both sides of the corner for everything used daily, and gives the lazy Susan the second tier: the mixing bowls, the slow cooker, the spare oil — things used weekly, on the top tray. If the budget has to give somewhere, the corner is where to economise: a blind corner at $614.25 plus a drawer base on each side can be more usable for a person who struggles to bend than a rotating corner flanked by door cabinets. The easy reach box sits between them, with fixed shelves and one wide door but no turntable.

The two sizes claim 33″ or 36″ of each wall and are $65.00 apart. For an accessible kitchen, the wider box is not mainly about storage: its door opening is wider, which gives a hand, or an arm reaching from a chair, more room at the mouth of the cabinet. Where the walls allow it, that is worth more than the extra tray area. Where they do not, the 33 is the better corner than a squeezed drawer base beside it. Both arrive pre-assembled in seven days to three weeks, and the rest of the finish is on the collection page, with the base cabinets — drawer bases included — listed by width.