Designing with Clearance
Preventive damage
An easily over looked detail is the distance around opened cabinet and appliance doors. A cabinet door opening too far and hitting another cabinet, drawer, handle or appliance is never a good surprise when your new kitchen is complete. Keep in mind that most doors on cabinets and appliances open beyond 90 deg. When possible use fillers between cabinets and against walls to give enough clearance when the door opens. This should be implemented in the first stages of measuring for your cabinets since the size and amount of fillers will affect the sizes of your cabinets. As shown in the photo, the fridge door stops just short of the microwave drawer when open. This Subzero refrigerator as well as a few other appliances and cabinet hardware can be adjusted to stop at 90 degrees. That allowed this cabinet to be installed without a filler which gave more space for the cabinet to be larger.
