refinements to the useless CCD overhead cabinets

[msfitz]

Has anyone found a good solution to making the overhead cabinets more useful on the CCD. The international CCD is a thing of beauty to look at but it stops there. Christopher Deam may be an award winning designer but I feel like he has never spent a week out in the boonies trying to find things that have fallen into the abyss of his useless overhead cabinets. I am 6'3 and can see into the cabinets but my wife is 5'6 and she can never locate anything up in there. I'm ready to tear them out and redesign. There must be a practical, useful storage system for glasses, dishes, etc...
Anybody have ideas?

[rmkrum]

Ours are equipped with plastic trays for organizing the stuff up there. I'm 5' 12" talk so DW has me do the load, search and unload.

We don't keep stuff up there that she needs that much.


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[Kate Lansing]

We just bought our ccd and I agree, it's hard to see inside the cabinets and I'm 5'3". For the cabinets over the dinette we purchased Sterilite EZ Carry 14 1/4 x 9 5/8 x 12 1/4 snap lock bins. We have a blueray player sitting at the far right and two of those bins fit on the left. We could fit three up there without the blueray player. We had to notch one of them at the bottom to fit over the bracket that's holding something together inside the cabinet, but I'm really happy to have things stored inside the bins that wont' rattle around inside the cabinet. All the cabinets are not the same size, so I just ordered a few different sizes to see what would fit in the other cabinets.

[Msmoto]

Oh, I am not the only one to have thoughts that the designer was so interested in aesthetics, forgot to be good.....if ever a storage cabinet was poorly designed.....yikes. If I were to change these, other than the shelves I have installed, I would cut the opening out at the bottom and install a Flying Cloud type door with some retainers inside which were transparent.

[rmkrum]

I've used some recycled plastic bins to organize storage in the overhead bins. The thing we are bugged by is the tendency for the doors to slide open. I plan to find some big rubber corks to put in the holes to keep them shut on the road.


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[Foiled Again]

Get one of those folding plastic stools. Camping World and every RV store in the world has them - or Amazon of course, AND find a few cheap small mirrors and stick them to the roof of the cabinets with Command adhesive strips - Quick glance helps you locate stuff, then pop the stool open, jump up and get what you want. On dishes I tried a couple of things to stack them vertically - finally realized a small plastic dish drainer from Walmart worked beautifully, saved space and made all the dishes visible for me. Tacked it to the side wall of the cabinet to keep if from sliding.
I had a 2005 CCD and the doors did slide open. I notice that in the 2012 EB I have now the doors are very stable. The slides are aluminum and the outside ends of the tracks appear to have been squeezed together slightly. You really have to push them to fully close them, but they STAY closed. I'm not sure if you'd have to pull out the tracks to adjust them, but seems like a pair of pliers on the ends would do it. Or get some slim dowel rods and lock down the doors by cutting them to length and dropping them in the tracks before you move.

[lbdesign]

You probably have the sliding translucent doors with finger-holes (newer models have the finger holes blocked with a metal insert). If that's the case, you can put a zip tie through them, or just take some ribbon and tie a bow to hold the overlapping doors in their shut location for travel.

Foiled: overhead mirrors are a genius idea!

Ikea has a lot of little plastic bins and boxes that fit well up in there.

[OTRA15]

Originally Posted by thelansings

We just bought our ccd and I agree, it's hard to see inside the cabinets and I'm 5'3". For the cabinets over the dinette we purchased Sterilite EZ Carry 14 1/4 x 9 5/8 x 12 1/4 snap lock bins. We have a blueray player sitting at the far right and two of those bins fit on the left. We could fit three up there without the blueray player. We had to notch one of them at the bottom to fit over the bracket that's holding something together inside the cabinet, but I'm really happy to have things stored inside the bins that wont' rattle around inside the cabinet. All the cabinets are not the same size, so I just ordered a few different sizes to see what would fit in the other cabinets.

Thanks for the Sterilite tip.

My Flying Cloud 20' has a similar set up I think. Are the dimensions above correct for the Sterilite bin? It seems too large for over my dinette.

Here is the manufacturer's page for clear bins FYI. The various retailers may have old stock of other items of course.

Sterilite - Storage: Clears

This style of flip-top hinged bins also seems useful IMO, as the lids do not detach:

Amazon.com - Sterilite Large Flip Top Storage Box, Set of 6 - Lidded Home Storage Bins

Exterior dimensions are said to be 13.1 x 7.6 x 4.5 inches.

The mfg. page which shows this bin (and others) is here:

http://www.sterilite.com/ProductCate...y=46&section=1

Bin:

http://www.sterilite.com/SelectProdu...=249&section=1


FWIW

[Kate Lansing]

Yes, that's the correct size and they fit perfectly in the over the dinette area, except for the bracket towards the middle. We cut the strip in the bottom of the container to fit over the bracket with a dremmel tool. I have two other sizes on order for the other cabinets, so when I figure out what fits I'll let you know. It's hard to premeasure because of the rounded shape of the cabinet. We also have a 1957 Catollac Deville canned ham that I did the same thing with. Everything travels well in the plastic bins and that little trailer rides much bumpier than the international. I think the bins are a great solution and we love everything else about it.

[OTRA15]

Thanks for the confirmation. Yes the Sterilite line offers lots of possibilities. I ordered some samples to check full-scale. Thanks again.

[Kate Lansing]

You're welcome!

[cabinetmaker]

Make a list of each cabinet items in a little notebook. Keep it handy so you can look your stuff up before digging around. Then reach up and retrive. No need to see inside each bin.

[OTRA15]

The Sterilite containers mentioned in Post #8 worked out great FYI. Just the right size to put multiples in various locations in my Flying Cloud 20. Thanks for the suggestions.

[BoldAdventure]

I just built shelves and dividers and put them in them. We're not all and we have no problems with our bins.

[TheHicks]

I purchased some different baskets that were soft sided from Target and The Container Store that worked well size wise and am using them as well as using some racks meant for dishes and pots and pans that we could screw into place and I could keep things upright in the cupboards. You do lose some room but at least you can take down the different baskets and hopefully you mostly remember what is in them and just get out what you need. We are just getting used to this after having a 2000 which had much more easy to access cupboards.