Kitchen corner posts

[BrandonB]

Hi all,

I thought I’d create a post (not a pun) as it’s something I find time consuming and can be abit of a head scratcher as it’s a crucial part of the setting out. You only have one attempt at getting it right otherwise, it’s a nightmare.

The corner post - The majority of kitchens I’ve fitted it arrives pre-made and you just have to attach to the side of a door or to a large base unit, fixed to mullion to form the corner which usually has a 450/500/600mm door beside it. Which takes all of the thinking and playing around out of the equation.

Some of the cheaper/lower quality kitchens supply a décor end panel which you have to rip down to form your own corner post. They often don’t come with a 18mm/12mm blanking panel which you usually screw your corner post to for your base units. They generally give you a 3mm MDF panel, you’d need to trim and screw to the carcass after the corner post is installed, often fiddly and annoying.

I recently installed a Wren kitchen which had a ‘floating corner post’ for the wall units. The wall units had a handle-less rail fitted to the bottom of them. which made it difficult to fix the ‘floating corner post’ as you cannot screw anything to the bottom, as the front edge has the handle-less rail. It was definitely more work than it was worth.

I managed to do it in the end, but how do you guys approach your corner posts, do you have any tips or ways of doing them?

(obviously keeping the post flush with the doors, 2mm past the carcass)

 

[baldkev]

The majority of kitchens i have fitted are howdens. The corner posts for base units for instance are 57mm x 60mm. The standard measurement from a wall to the unit that butts up to the corner unit ( lets say a 1000mm with magic corner baskets ) is 631 / 632mm. Thats a unit depth of 575 plus the 57mm. On the 1000 unit, i measure from the edge of the cab that'll remain visable, 501mm onto the support post, hold the corner piece to that line and mark where the post and back edge of the support post meet, which is the back edge of the little white blocks and fix off, place the 2nd unit in its gap and fix to the corner post using white blocks pre installed. I then put the blanking panel on and screw in using a 300mm extension at a slight angle. That leaves a 12ish mm gap by the support post vertically, but no cans or pans ive come across would fall through the gap

 

[Lons]

I've been retired a while now but I hate gaps and always made up a blanking panel if one wasn't provided, in instances such as yours where there was a larger than normal face panel I used to make up a unit to store trays instead or if enough room then for storing wine bottles. I had one example where at the request of the lady of the house I made up a secret access where she could hide purchases from her husband until she'd had them long enough to say "this old thing, I've had it for ages, don't you remember?" Women - one would never do that with a woodworking tool.

 

[Spectric]

It all comes down to the design, run up the wrong path and you can hit problems but with good design then you can remove the problem and get a better job. Biggest issue with kitchen storage is the back of the cupboards and access so good full extension pull outs can make full use of the space. This sort of concept with corner drawers or any combination of pullouts and drawers but might be more in the bespoke kitchen domain.

 

[Distinterior]

It all comes down to the design, run up the wrong path and you can hit problems but with good design then you can remove the problem and get a better job. Biggest issue with kitchen storage is the back of the cupboards and access so good full extension pull outs can make full use of the space. This sort of concept with corner drawers or any combination of pullouts and drawers but might be more in the bespoke kitchen domain.

View attachment 155440

I used to fit a few of those, back when I was importing German kitchens. ( I now make my own cabinets....)

The main pitfall of them was they do waste a lot of space......Yes, you can access the corner by means of the drawers, but the cabinet itself was L shaped at 1050mm x 1050mm...... This created inaccessible triangular shaped voids either side of the corner drawer unit and most people couldn't afford to lose that amount of space......let alone the cost of the unit itself which was loads of Euro's to buy in the first place.......And trying to adjust all the drawer fronts to give you perfect alignment was an unbelievable pain in the a r s e....!!

Having said all that, the mechanism that allowed the drawer fronts to fold out & in was impressive
Made by Blum if I remember correctly....?

 

[johnnyb]

I recently had a head scratcher it was a corner post less door in an inflame kitchen. I used pie cuts for the corner and special 170 degree ones with a 9mm spacer and a corner block.































worked as expected but to much ironmongery puzzles.