This Barker Cabinets pantry wall is supposed to took like 4 cabinets, but it actually took 12 cabinets to complete it. How did I do? 
I didn’t make this snazzy SketchUp diagram until just now, so it definitely wasn’t necessary for the process. Actually it’s the first time I’ve ever used SketchUp. So yay for me!
I told you in this post how I figured out the design and layout of my cabinets. Then I showed you in my last post how long and tedious it was to place an order for only 6 base cabinets from the Barker Cabinets website. That was section 1. Now we have an even bigger challenge — to order the pantry cabinets. They are going to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle.
This post is specific for the pantry wall shown above. For general information about ordering Barker Cabinets, read this post.
Section 2: Barker Cabinets Pantry
Of course I relied heavily on my old fashioned sketch while I meticulously placed the order for each cabinet. To make it easier for myself, I focused on one row of cabinets at a time, the bottom, middle, then top.
Bottom Row of Cabinets
Starting from the ground up, I needed to order three 2-drawer base cabinets. The maximum height I wanted them to come to is 27″, because that is the height of the refrigerator drawer and I thought it would look nice if they were all the same height. I didn’t want to waste 4″ of that on a standard toe kick because I wanted to maximize every inch of height. I decided to go with 2.25″ toe kick, or something close to that. You cannot adjust the height of the Barker toe kick, it’s either 4″ or it’s nothing. No worries, I’ll just build a platform for them to rest on. So I went with the No Toe Kick option.
All three drawer bases are different. The one on the left (#3) is only 33″ wide, while the other two (#1 and #2) are 36″. The only difference between #1 and #2 is that I ordered one to with a drawer in drawer option. You can find this option under “Slide Out Shelves”, but right below that they are called “Pull Out Shelves” and on the drop down menu they are called “Roll Out Shelves”. Don’t be confused — these are all the same thing.
It looked like this on the Barker order:
My earlier plans did not involve drawers below the cabinets, they were simply going to be doors all the way down. I am so so so happy I went with the drawers. It’s definitely easier to pull out a drawer than it is to open two doors and then pull out a rolling shelf.
Middle Row of Cabinets
This was the most complicated row of my Barker Cabinets pantry because of the wall oven. It had to fit precisely in the appliance case and all the other measurements had to be worked out around that. I ended up using a 30″ pantry cabinet and a 6″ slim cabinet next to it. I was already worried about having the wall oven right next to the refrigerator, although that was the layout before the remodel, because I was afraid the refrigerator door would hit the oven handle. There’s also the whole hot next to cold thing that isn’t supposed to be good for the appliances. The 6″ filler cabinet solved that issue and gives me a nice place to store cutting boards and cookie sheets. Score!
For the double door cabinets, I naturally thought I should look under the pantry cabinets section, but it turns out that I couldn’t use those. Barker doesn’t let you make pantry cabinets shorter than 48.25″. So I headed over to the wall cabinets, where the height worked out, and I could adjust the depth from 12″ to 24″ no problem. But it wouldn’t allow an option for rollouts. So this wouldn’t work either because I had my heart set on a serious amount of rollout functionality. I even emailed Chad and asked him if there was a way to add rollouts to 24″ wall cabinets and he said there was not. However, he did suggest I look at base cabinets.
Third time’s a charm, because I could customize a base cabinet to fit my needs. I made sure to order one without a toe kick of course. I went with the maximum number of rollouts, which is 4, but I really wanted 5. I’ll show you how I got around this when we get to the top row. I should have made a note asking for no holes to be drilled for the pullouts, because I made my own anyway. There is no option to space the drawers out how you see fit. They always come evenly spaced. I think that’s lame.
Although both end units look like double door cabinets, only the one on the left is. On the right it is two single door cabinets. I did this so I could have smaller pullouts and a few shelves. I made sure my measurements would come out to 18″ so I could use some of the Ikea wire pullouts (UTRUSTA), which cost $19 compared to the pullouts from Barker, which cost $79.95.
This was the Barker Cabinets order.
Top Row of Cabinets
The top row was the easiest to order, but required the most modify to assemble. You see I wanted the look of floor to ceiling cabinets, but the main HVAC line runs just below the ceiling and used to be hidden in a soffit. I hate soffits. You should know that about me. So I built my cabinets around the soffit. Luckily the HVAC sits back about 11″, which meant I had 11″ of usable space in front of it.
The cabinet above the refrigerator (#11 on the diagram) is only 10″ deep and did not have to be modified. You might think there’s no point to a 10″ deep cabinet, but I love it! It’s deep enough (9.25″) to store things, but shallow enough that nothing gets lost. The shallow depth of the cabinet also allows for plenty of airflow for the refrigerator. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. I ordered the cabinet to be 36.5″, even though the refrigerator technically only needs 36″, because I wanted just a little more wiggle room on both sides.
I am anal, so I priced out this configuration (36.5″ wide, 21.5″ high, 10″ deep) in both wall cabinet and base cabinet, and the wall cabinet was almost $40 cheaper. I have no idea why. But I would suggest you do the same when it comes to pieces like this that could go either way.
For the other three cabinets (#9, #10, #11) I had to order to order base cabinets, instead of wall cabinets, because I wanted pullouts. I ordered these cabinets at 24″, but cut out the back upper portion of each while I was assembling them. I will share how I did this in another post, but the gist is that the bottom part of the cabinet is 24″ deep with a full depth rollout, and the upper part of the cabinet is a 9″ deep shelf.
For cabinet #12 I ordered 2 pullouts, but only installed 1. The other pullout went into cabinet #8, because as you read above, I wanted 5 rollout shelves in cabinet 8, but the max I could order was 4. Problem solved by ordering an extra rollout for #12.
Cabinets 9 and 10 are the same as 12, but 36″ wide and with only 1 pullout.
The total for my Barker Cabinets pantry wall: $4,567.65
This includes the 5% discount for orders over $7,500.
My total cabinet order was $7,732.70 – 5% discount = $7,346.07 (includes the pantry wall and the cabinets from section 1, found in here)
There is no tax or shipping fee, so this is the total cost of cabinets. But remember I still have to build side panels, build an island, paint the doors and buy lumber for modifications.
You can keep up with me here: Facebook / Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube / Twitter
Check out these posts for more about my kitchen renovations:
Leave a Reply