Every kitchen has one cabinet nobody can reach into. A blind corner swallows a square yard of storage and gives back an arm's length of it. Three mechanisms fix that, and they are not equally good or equally priced.
A lazy susan is circular or kidney shaped shelving on a central pole. It spins, so the back comes round to the front. It is the simplest of the three, the cheapest, and mechanically the least likely to ever go wrong, which is a genuine argument in its favour.
Its weakness is geometry. Round shelves inside a square cabinet leave the four corners of the carcass permanently unused, so a lazy susan holds noticeably less than the space it occupies. People are consistently surprised by this, because a large spinning tray looks generous right up until you try to fill the cabinet.
Pull-out systems use rectangular shelves that come fully out of the cabinet, so you see everything and the corners are not wasted. A magic corner brings a second set of shelves out behind the first. See pull-outs, the storage hub and custom cabinets.
Recent work
How it works
How a Corner Gets Solved
Work out what type it is
A true corner cabinet with a diagonal or bi-fold door takes a lazy susan. A blind corner, where one run runs past the other, needs a pull-out designed for exactly that.
Measure the door opening
Blind corner shelves have to pass through the door. Where the opening is narrow, the mechanism that fits may not be the one you wanted, and it is better to know now.
Match the spend to the use
Daily pans justify a magic corner. Occasional appliances do not. We will recommend the cheaper mechanism where the cheaper mechanism is enough.
Fit and test loaded
Fitted with the doors off, then tested with weight in it rather than empty. A mechanism that glides empty and binds loaded is a mechanism that has been set up badly.
Choosing one
Price and Space Pull in Opposite Directions
On price the order is consistent: lazy susans are the budget option, blind corner pull-outs sit in the middle, and magic corners are the premium end. On usable storage the order reverses, because rectangular shelves that come right out beat round ones that stay in.
So the honest recommendation depends entirely on what the corner is for. A corner holding pans you reach for daily justifies the mechanism several times over. A corner holding a slow cooker and a bread maker that come out twice a year does not, and there a lazy susan or even a plain fixed shelf is plenty.
The other constraint is the opening. A blind corner needs enough door width for the shelves to pass through, which not every cabinet has. We check that before quoting rather than after, alongside the runner spec, any accessories going in with it and the drawer layout nearby.
Choosing it
Other storage work
The Rest of What Goes Inside
Corners are the worst offender. These handle the rest of the run.
The three mechanisms, what each costs, and which fits your cabinet.
Pull-out systems, because rectangular shelves suit a square cabinet and come fully out. A lazy susan looks bigger but leaves the four corners of the cabinet unused, so it holds less than the space suggests.
A lazy susan, comfortably. Blind corner pull-outs sit in the middle and magic corners are the premium option. Price and usable storage run in opposite directions here, which is the whole decision.
A corner where one run of cabinets runs past the other, so part of the cabinet sits behind the neighbouring run with no door of its own. That hidden section is what a blind corner pull-out reaches.
No, and that is their strength. A pole and a tray is about as simple as cabinet hardware gets, so there is very little to fail. The trade-off is storage efficiency, not durability.
Not necessarily. Blind corner shelves have to pass through the door opening, and narrow openings rule some systems out. We measure that before quoting rather than discovering it on fitting day.
If the corner holds things you use daily, yes, because you gain a cabinet you previously could not use. If it holds a bread maker, a lazy susan or a plain shelf is the sensible answer.
Often, and it is far cheaper done while the doors are off during a reface. Retrofitting later means a separate visit for what would otherwise have been an hour of work.
We work out which type of corner you have, measure the door opening, and recommend the cheapest mechanism that actually solves it rather than the dearest one available.
