Blum Space Saver Corner Drawers
27 March 2008Maggie’s Drawers (Four of Five)
Blum is a company I very much respect because theirs is a quality product. Actually, I should say products, lots of products arranged in a number of lines of drawer glides and hinges in all kinds of shapes, sizes and permutations. There is something for every budget, and all of their products actually work. My fellow cabinetmakers tend to view Blum’s 230 series glides as a cheap item, which it is, but only in price. Actually, it’s where they began, with an excellent drawer glide at a price that I always found acceptable. All that’s changed over the years is that the price has lowered as they have rolled out other, more innovative, products. But that basic drawer glide still does a wonderful job—rolls like butter, my wife says—and it is still the glide I use for myself. If it is “cheap,” it is so only in relationship to the “hotter” items because Blum is very much on the cutting edge.
But sometimes, you can try so hard to please that you end up doing something that is not particularly helpful, and I very much fear that Blum has done this with their recent offering of blind corner drawers.
At first blush it looks like a terrific product, but like the others we’ve examined, what dooms the concept is simple math. These drawers, like the Lazy Susan, require considerably more space then they give back in storage. In fact, this configuration would occupy a space about the same as that used by the Lazy Susan, but these drawers give back only 384 square inches of usable space. There is another 144 square inches split between the two triangle areas at the front of the drawers, but all you’ll really going to do with a space like that is go in search of some item that fits the space. What I find useful about cabinets is their capacity for storing those items I actually use, not just whatever I can find that will fit in them.
I must say, though, that these drawers—probably because they are newer—are the most dramatic-looking solution to the problem I’ve yet encountered. You can almost hear an announcer somewhere intoning, “At last a solution to the blind corner.” But I’m afraid it’s more marketing than solution. One of the maxims of Madison Avenue is that you sell the sizzle, not the steak. And sometimes, sadly, they just sell the sizzle.
When I was in the Army, we had to qualify on the firing range every year. The targets were some distance away, so they had men in the target pits who examined the targets after every round of firing and wig-waged the results. So many shots hit the bull’s eye, so many hit the second ring, and so forth. And when they got to the end, if one or more shots had missed the target altogether, they waved a big red flag, Maggie’s Drawers, we called it. I’m rather afraid that Blum’s Space Corner Cabinet Solution drawers qualify for that red flag.
Joseph
As usual, Joseph and I disagree here. Having seen and played with these drawer boxes I can tell you that they definitely have the “wow” factor, especially the drawer units shown in the lower image. These are Blum’s special TandemBox stainless steel drawer boxes. The fronts on these are setup with a special butterfly action which folds together slightly when the drawers are opened, and then they unfold as the drawers come to rest against the cabinet sides when closing. As with most of the new Blum slides these are setup with the Blumotion feature which gives you the “ahhh” at the end of their closure. These are not a cheap solution to kitchen corners, but they are definitely nice.
Joe
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