From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.
--
Chris Green
-+
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

Some kind of 360 degree carousel where you can rotate it to fetch things out
of it? eg a 1m wide carousel would take up 1m of your depth, with a 30cm worktop space in front. If you cut the worktop around the carousel to give
a flat surface with no gaps you can have effectively the first 50+30=80cm of depth as 'workspace' or with storage against a divider, but you can spin it around to access the rear portion behind the divider.

You could have the worktop in front fold to one side (pub counter style) to give access to levels of the carousel below the worktop.

Theo
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

On 08/10/2025 15:54, Chris Green wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

I would look for some variant of this
(IKEA VARIERA Pull-out container)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joYnSz_FXkw

Ikea have a lot of stuff for making the maximum use of space for
storage. Whilst they might not have the exact thing you need, there
might be a few ideas in there.
--
Sam Plusnet
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

On 08/10/2025 15:54, Chris Green wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

Could you not build a "cupboard" which fits in the space, but is on
castors or some runners so it can be pulled out? Even if the space the cupboard moved out into (I assume a sort of passageway) is not very
wide, any drawers in the cupboard could be arranged to pull sideways
into the passageway, rather than across it to allow easy access.

Also, can you make the work surface hinged so it can be pulled up out of
the way?
--
Jeff
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Chris Green <cl@isbd.net> wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

Some kind of 360 degree carousel where you can rotate it to fetch things out of it? eg a 1m wide carousel would take up 1m of your depth, with a 30cm worktop space in front. If you cut the worktop around the carousel to give
a flat surface with no gaps you can have effectively the first 50+30=80cm of depth as 'workspace' or with storage against a divider, but you can spin it around to access the rear portion behind the divider.

You could have the worktop in front fold to one side (pub counter style) to give access to levels of the carousel below the worktop.

That last bit, a folding to one side worktop, is a good idea. Thank you.
--
Chris Green
-+
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

Jeff Layman <Jeff@invalid.invalid> wrote:

On 08/10/2025 15:54, Chris Green wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to
140cm but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front
of it, so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep
at the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of
too far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and
brushes, bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with
the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere
else but it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

Could you not build a "cupboard" which fits in the space, but is on
castors or some runners so it can be pulled out? Even if the space the cupboard moved out into (I assume a sort of passageway) is not very
wide, any drawers in the cupboard could be arranged to pull sideways
into the passageway, rather than across it to allow easy access.

That might be a possibility, I'll add it to my list of possible ways
to do things. :-)

Also, can you make the work surface hinged so it can be pulled up out of
the way?

That, like Theo's (?) above is definitely a good idea, I'm going to
take a serious look at how that might work.

Thank you all.
--
Chris Green
-+
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

On Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:54:24 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to 140cm
but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front of it,
so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep at
the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of too
far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and brushes,
bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with the worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere else but
it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

For shallow but deep storage in our motor home I used plastic storage
boxes with lids, and a cord to pull each one out.
So you would have the front storage box for frequently used items, and the rear storage box for less popular items.
You could then pull out a box and put it on the work surface, and if
required pull out the other box.
A bit inelegant, but works.

Similar in principle to storing stuff under a double bed.

Cheers



Dave R
--
AMD FX-6300 in GA-990X-Gaming SLI-CF running Windows 10 x64

--
This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. www.avast.com
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From Newsgroup: uk.d-i-y

On 09/10/2025 17:12, David wrote:

On Wed, 08 Oct 2025 15:54:24 +0100, Chris Green wrote:

This is an alcove on our boat but that's not very relevant.

It's 100cm wide, 130cm deep and can be used to a height of 120 to 140cm
but we probably want a kitchen height work sorface at the front of it,
so that's about 90cm high.

The difficulty is to find ways of using the space behind what will be
the working surface. At present there's a working surface 60cm deep at
the back of the alcove which doesn't get used much as it's sort of too
far back. Under the work surface is storage for dustpans and brushes,
bowls, and things like that.

There's towel hanging space on one side which won't really work with the
worktop being moved forwards, it might possibly move somewhere else but
it's another problem of the space.

If we simply moved the worktop to the front of the alcove and put
cupboards of some sort under it would work to an extent, but what
happens to the space behind? You can't really get drawers over 100cm
long and there isn't space to pull them out anyway.

The more I explain it the more it seems very difficult to use! :-)

Any/all ideas welcome.

For shallow but deep storage in our motor home I used plastic storage
boxes with lids, and a cord to pull each one out.
So you would have the front storage box for frequently used items, and the rear storage box for less popular items.
You could then pull out a box and put it on the work surface, and if
required pull out the other box.
A bit inelegant, but works.

Similar in principle to storing stuff under a double bed.

Cheers

Dave R

Aldi had some useful long, narrow clear plastic fridge
'organisers' last Saturday
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