This Genius Pull-Out Drawer Finally Gets Paper Towels Off Your Kitchen Counter

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Paper towels are one of those unsightly but necessary kitchen staples in our homes. For those who want easy, unencumbered access, having a not-so-pretty countertop or under-cabinet roll holder on display is tolerable. Alternatively, those who put aesthetics at the forefront — ahem, like the interior designer writing this very article — tend to hide their paper towel roll in a cabinet or pull-out drawer, only to fumble with dripping wet hands to get those absorbent little lifesavers out from behind closed doors. Surely there has to be a happy medium between ugly and convenient, right? Well, funny you should ask, because a huge part of my job over the past 13 years of space planning and designing kitchens has been staying up-to-date with cabinet storage innovations. And I'm happy to report that the future of paper towels is officially here!

What started as a genius solution created by custom cabinet makers has become a seriously smart and not-so-exclusive kitchen storage solution. Enter the paper towel drawer, a clever take on the typical upper cabinet drawer. Instead of a solid drawer front, these feature a window-box opening to access an interior compartment for paper towels. Because most of the utilitarian aspects are housed within the drawer itself, the paper towels are mostly hidden under your countertop and below eye level. However, the access window means there's no cabinet front standing between you and the towel you need to quickly wipe countertop spills. Sounds perfect, no? Well, execute it incorrectly, and you'll be forever cursing your not-so-functional drawer. To avoid that, I'll break down all the details to make sure this brilliant paper towel storage solution actually works as well as you hope.

This clever paper towel drawer has an open interior compartment in the front, complete with a removable floating rod for the roll. Similar to a sideways tissue box, the cabinet front has a window for grabbing a paper towel without having to open the drawer. When it's time to replace the roll, you simply open the drawer, lift out the empty roll, and replace it with one of the spares stored in the back portion of the drawer. Functionally, it provides immediate access with no cabinet fronts blocking the way, but its discreet location also removes the ugly roll from the counter. Pure genius.

So if this paper towel drawer is so darn smart, then what's the problem? The big issue is they're often made too small for today's paper towel rolls. A standard upper drawer front is typically about 6 inches, though it can vary. While this sounds plenty big, by the time you deduct the size of the cabinet frame and drawer box, you're usually left with a usable interior height of only 3 to 4 inches. While this may be enough for a thin bargain roll, it's nowhere near close to housing a plush mega roll. Learn from social media users, like Instagrammer alexandramorgandesign, who found out the hard way that this style of storage needs to be taller than a standard upper drawer.

If I'd paid to have a paper towel drawer installed and it didn't fit my rolls, it'd drive me nuts! Leaving a too-large roll on the counter until it actually fits in the drawer utterly defeats the purpose, and nobody wants to be forced to buy a smaller, more inferior roll. So let's look at the right way to go about this.

As your trusty kitchen space planner, I'd be remiss if I didn't help you avoid a frustrating result — the literal reason people hire professionals. So I took it upon myself to measure my oversized roll of Kirkland brand paper towels in the name of research. The diameter was 6 inches, a decent reference for larger roll sizes, and it absolutely confirmed that a standard upper drawer won't cut it size-wise. So if you're trying to retrofit an existing drawer or match the paper towel drawer to the other upper drawers — trust me, I totally understand this impulse — don't do it.

Instead, grab a measuring tape. Take 10 seconds to measure your favorite brand of paper towels to determine the space requirements that will work for you. Once you know the diameter of your beloved super-mega-jumbo roll, you're equipped with the info to make the drawer successful, like this happy Instagrammer, welshdesignstudio, who made her drawer taller than her other upper drawers.

Next, implement this information in a few ways. The first is, of course, planning it into new custom kitchen cabinets for a home build or renovation. Share your roll measurements with your cabinet maker to ensure you're getting a large enough drawer interior. The second is to DIY or modify an existing cabinet by making or using a clever kitchen drawer organization product like this REV-A-SHELF system for $278 on Amazon, which can fit a roll up to 6 inches in diameter. It comes with its own taller-than-standard drawer front, which can be painted to match your cabinets or used as a template to have a matching door made. Use it with additional drawers or a trash pull-out underneath for a single-cabinet refresh.