"1. The cover panels add 1/2 inch!! This is important if
you are placing a chimney style hood between upper cabinets. I
have a 30 inch hood and allowed 30 inches of space so the hood
would fit snuggly between the cabinets. I didn't think about the
fact that I would need 31 inches of space to allow for 2 cover
panels on the ends of the cabinets that touch. Yikes. Contractor
noticed this though, and we worked out a fix.
2. If you have a peninsula and are getting a cover panel for
the back, think about how you want the grain to run. My
peninsula back is 3x7 so I ordered the 3x8 cover panel and
thought that would be perfect. Well, the 3x8 panel has the grain
running up and down longways, so if turned to fit the back of
the peninsula, the grain goes horizontally while the grain on
all the cabinets goes vertically. My contractor pointed this out
to me. Did I want him to use it, or cut it into sections so it
could run vertically, but then we would also need a little more
which he could salvage from the oven panel. Ultimately decided
since there is an overhang and barstools, wouldn't be that big
of a deal and went with horizontal and no cuts - but keep it in
mind!
3. I you have a shallow cooktop, you may be able to have the
top drawers of a drawer base function!! I was sure this could be
done and ordered the drawer base rather than the cooktop cabinet
with fake fronts. Turns out it will work, but what I didn't
think through was I'd have to order the 30 inch one piece drawer
normally sold with the oven cabinet in place of the 2 drawers
that come with the 30" drawer base because the 2 drawers
come with a divider through the middle. This also proves that if
you don't like the look of the 2 drawer split on a 30"
drawer base, you can have it be 3 full size drawers."
