Knife wall cabinet
- Thread starter ian
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What's wrong with drawers? Give drawers a chance!
My wife plonked an ungainly cabinet thing in our kitchen a few months back. I was not a fan of it initially until I looked in the drawers... Which had these clever green insert bits to hold (at least some of) our knives:
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!!
Other drawers did not have the fancy green inserts, and that kind of drawer turned out to be the perfect home for whetstones:
I think we can all agree now that there is a drawer out there for any conceivable application.
My wife plonked an ungainly cabinet thing in our kitchen a few months back. I was not a fan of it initially until I looked in the drawers... Which had these clever green insert bits to hold (at least some of) our knives:
BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!!!
Other drawers did not have the fancy green inserts, and that kind of drawer turned out to be the perfect home for whetstones:
I think we can all agree now that there is a drawer out there for any conceivable application.
DitmasPork
Senior Member
I always felt that the low drawer height of flat files were ideal for knives and stones.
Yea, that’s nice, and I’m down with drawers, it’s more about what will fit in the kitchen. The cabinet I was imagining was super shallow, so it wouldn’t work well with knives in drawers.
After much negotiation, it may turn out that the only viable solution is to pay thousands of dollars to extend our kitchen island 2-3 ft, in which case there’d be plenty of space for knife storage underneath.
Carl Kotte
Senior Member
or between stove and wall, like this!
Hmm, there’s usually a lot of space in the oven now that you mention it.
Magbars are great, but I guess if she wants to pay thousands of dollars herself to not have the knives visible that should be fine. If she's being too unreasonable you can always propose to put HER out of sight instead. I mean we're talking about knives here
She asked me just a second ago why I started laughing and wasn’t happy when I wouldn’t tell her.
Well if the timelessly elegant 'drawer system' won't work, then I suggest you to go to the other, 'Bond Villain-y', extreme... secret toggles in bookshelves, lasers that you can only see with special glasses, pools of water that drain instantly to reveal the crocodiles guarding your cabinet below. That kinda thing.
DitmasPork
Senior Member
All of them, of course! Like 10-15 or something, including beaters. Not negotiable!
Elliot
Senior Member
I absolutely went over board on this early in my journey. It only holds a small fraction of my knives at this point, but I actually had a custom cabinet built. Pics coming in a moment from my phone.
Jovidah
I'll make you a sponsor offer you can't refuse...
Elliot
Senior Member
That looks real nice. Do you find that the doors are sturdy enough? I kinda worry about taking the knives off the strips that are mounted on the doors. I guess you have to hold the door while you do it, but it feels solid?
Elliot
Senior Member
I have something similar in mind but only in smaller size.
Cool, good to hear. Yea, was worrying more about the door hinges, given that the magnets are strong. If I do decide to go the wall cabinet route, something like this may actually be a good option.
There’s only one solution to this knife storage conundrum - you must buy a bigger house. The knives demand it.
WiriWiri
Senior Member
Maybe it’s my British prudishness, but if someone‘s wife objected to the sight of kitchen knives in the, erm, kitchen, I‘m not altogether certain that she’d appreciate blades in the bedroom.
And if nosey parkers did spot a shedload of oblong boxes stashed under the bed I’m not sure if they’d be assuming knives as the contents either..
Pensfan
Active Member
WiriWiri
Senior Member
I kind of admire your unyielding German-brand personal preference and crusade. I am, however, glad for your sake that Wusthof do not make underwear or other products.
The same goes for Ken Onion fwiw
A lot of these knives are very old as I inherited my mom's Henckels 4star knives when she passed.
The Henckels in the left upper corner is a 11.5-inch chef's knife I bought when I was in my twenties 40+ years ago. It was my main chef knife when I was young.
I probably have another at least 8 Henckels 4star knives in a drawer somewhere which are duplicates or ones I don't use.
The Henckels in the left upper corner is a 11.5-inch chef's knife I bought when I was in my twenties 40+ years ago. It was my main chef knife when I was young.
I probably have another at least 8 Henckels 4star knives in a drawer somewhere which are duplicates or ones I don't use.
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DitmasPork
Senior Member
I have a typical NYC kitchen, barely any space whatsoever—fortunately I already have a flat file in the bedroom, so one of the drawers has become all knives. Yeah, I gotta suitcase in the hallway closet that's all knife boxes.
WiriWiri
Senior Member
Damn! That is first class spy room right there
Most of that is actually true fwiw, alhough I can sadly report that I was not issued with a colour coordinated jumpsuit when working for his company, Boringly I didn’t even have access to the secret volcano island hideaway. He even had the cheek to seem quite nice and was mystifyingly free of giveaway facial scars and/or dubious pets.
The only other’ inspiration’ that I can draw from the Getty lifestyle that applies to @ian is that MG used to employ a chauffeur. Who used to circle one of his fleet of Uber-lovely cars around the office all day, avoiding traffic wardens and flawlessly arriving immediately as required. It’s probably a push to suggest buying a vintage ferrari to ferry knives around Boston solely to avoid offending the missus’ interior design sensibilities, but small children and desperate drug mules may present a lower cost alternative
Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed this thread and many of the great suggestions*, which have had me scrutinising every spare inch of our undersized kitchen in hope. In my mind, discrete knife storage also somehow equates with helping to disguise and underplay the number of blades. Which may just allow me to get away with a few more buys…
*Particularly liked @MrHiggins use of the pull out fwiw. I envisaged a magnet-type block in the middle, but his use of slots and drawing from the top, ‘Excalibur style‘ is so much better. I’d never be allowed to displace the bottles of squash and oil from the one obvious candidate drawer admittedly, but we have patio doors next to the kitchen leading to a scrappy garden with a few big rocks. I have stainless blades and the King Arthur fantasy may be on, at least for the BBQ season.
WiriWiri
Senior Member
Londoner here, so entirely sympathise. We’ve moved a little further out now, so we actually have a room rather than a corridor for a kitchen, but still I suspect our whole house would fit in the basements of many here,
FWIW I did have a load of knife boxes under our bed for those reasons. I‘ve moved them now, as many got a bit squashed. Aside from the fugging grinning TF mugshot of a box, which remains strangely pristine
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My first thoughts are that a quick and dirty option would be something like a roll up shade or even venetian blinds. My second and classier version is something like a vintage roll top desk.
