If you want your kitchen to be as functional as possible and to provide needed storage as well as sufficient room for food prep and cooking, you might want to have your cabinets custom made by cabinet makers. This will ensure that you're not overlooking any storage space inside the cabinets, and can also mean working your cabinets around awkward corners of the kitchen or around your oversized, specialty appliances. Before you meet with a custom cabinetmaker, note a few details to consider and to have included in those cabinets, so you know you're taking full advantage of your home's kitchen space.

Corner storage

Many lower cabinets in a kitchen have what is called a dead space, or the space in the corner of the cabinets that is difficult to see or reach. Some cabinets even have this space walled up, since it's so inaccessible.

Rather than waste this space, ask your cabinetmaker about corner storage. This can include a long, hinged shelving unit connected to a door front; when you open the door, the hinged area then pivots to one side so that you can pull that entire long shelf out from the corner. This allows you full access to that space so you can use it for storage, but without having to bend, stoop and reach into those far areas.

Trash pullout

Leaving your trash can in the middle of the kitchen is convenient but very unsightly. To keep trash put away but still accessible, have your cabinetmaker create a trash pullout drawer. This type of lower drawer can be operated with a pedal that you simply press with your foot and which then slides the drawer out automatically. Dividers can be added so you can keep multiple bins in the drawer, for trash, composting, recycling and whatever else is needed. You can even have such pullout drawers made for bins of bulk items that are heavy and cumbersome, including pet food, flour and the like.

Spice racks

If you cook a lot and use lots of spices, you should incorporate a spice rack into your custom cabinets. This can be a rack that slides between cabinets and rolls out for easy access. A fold-down shelf can also tuck into the space below an upper cabinet, to keep spices out of the way. This can also keep their containers cleaner than if you stored them in a standard rack above the stovetop, where they're exposed to grease and food splatter, and can also open up space in the cabinets and cupboards.