A Lista cabinet is a housing and a stack of drawers, and the stack is the whole decision. Get it right and every tool in the shop has one obvious home. Get it wrong and the 11 inch drawer at the top fills with tangled extension cords while the 2 inch drawers at the bottom hold nothing at all. Here is how the sizes work, the layout most shops end up with, and the exact drawer stack of every model we stock.
The rule: small on top, tall on the bottom
Shallow drawers go at the top, where you look straight down into them and see everything in one layer: sockets, inserts, gauges, drill bits. Mid-height drawers go in the middle for hand tools and cordless tools. The tall drawers go at the bottom, for two reasons. Heavy things belong low, so the cabinet stays planted and nobody lifts a vise at chest height. And a tall drawer at floor level is easy to look into from above, where the same drawer at eye level is a dark box you have to dig through.
That is the layout the factory uses for its preconfigured models and the one nearly every custom build follows. The cabinet configurator opens on a 750 housing laid out 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 5, 5 inches from top to bottom, and most builds saved through it this year keep the same shape.
The eight drawer heights, and what goes in each
Every Lista drawer is full extension and rated for 440 lb, whatever its height. The heights are named in points; the inches are the usable interior height.
| Points | Usable height | What tends to live there |
|---|---|---|
| 75 | 2 in | Sockets, wrenches, inserts, gauges, drill bits, small parts in bins. The drawer you want a lot of. |
| 100 | 3 in | Pliers, screwdrivers, taps and dies, measuring tools, boxed inserts, most hand tools standing on edge. |
| 125 | 4 in | Layout tools, files, boxed cutters, tool holders laid flat, cordless drivers without the battery. |
| 150 | 5 in | Cordless tools with batteries, fixtures, larger cutters, tool holders standing up, spare parts in larger bins. |
| 175 | 6 in | The in-between size: boxed power tools, collet sets, small vises, anything that does not quite fit a 5. |
| 200 | 7 in | Drill chucks, small vises, motors, hydraulic fittings, the heavy stuff that still needs to be found quickly. |
| 250 | 9 in | Bench vises, large fixtures, spools, bulky and heavy items that would crush a smaller drawer. |
| 300 | 11 in | The bottom drawer on a tall cabinet: pumps, gearboxes, big castings, anything you lift with two hands. |
Two heights do most of the work. The 2 inch drawer is the one you want many of, because a partitioned 2 inch drawer holds a whole socket set or a season of inserts in a single visible layer. The 5 inch drawer is the workhorse for everything with a battery or a handle. The 9 and 11 inch drawers are one-per-cabinet items. If you find yourself specifying three of them, you probably want a shelf cabinet for that gear instead.
The arithmetic: drawer points add up to the housing
This is the part nobody explains. A Lista housing is named by the total points of drawers it holds, and a drawer stack has to add up to it exactly. A 750 housing takes 750 points: ten 2 inch drawers (10 x 75), five 5 inch drawers (5 x 150), or the configurator default of 75 + 75 + 100 + 100 + 100 + 150 + 150. The model number points at it too: in HS13-0902, the 13 is the 1350 housing class, and the nine drawers in it (three 3s, three 5s, three 7s) add up to exactly 1,350 points.
| Housing | Housing height | Holds, for example |
|---|---|---|
| 450 | 21 5/8 in | 6 x 2 in, or 3 x 5 in |
| 600 | 27 1/2 in | 8 x 2 in, or 4 x 5 in |
| 750 | 33 1/2 in | 10 x 2 in, or 5 x 5 in |
| 900 | 39 3/8 in | 12 x 2 in, or 6 x 5 in |
| 1050 | 45 1/4 in | 14 x 2 in, or 7 x 5 in |
| 1200 | 51 in | 16 x 2 in, or 8 x 5 in |
| 1350 | 57 in | 18 x 2 in, or 9 x 5 in |
| 1500 | 63 in | 20 x 2 in, or 10 x 5 in |
Housing heights are the housing alone. Add the base the cabinet ships on (a fork-truck base, casters, or a leveling base) for the overall height, which is what the cabinet dimensions table lists.
Drawer count drives the price, not drawer height
Lista prices by the drawer. In the same series, going from a 2 inch drawer to an 11 inch drawer adds roughly a quarter to a half to the price of that one drawer, because the slides, the lock and the front are the same parts in a taller box. What moves the number is how many drawers you buy. A 750 housing full of ten 2 inch drawers costs far more than the same housing with five 5 inch drawers, and it should: you are buying twice as many slides and twice as many fronts. So the honest question is not "which heights" but "how many separate places do I need to find things." Answer that, then fill the rest of the housing with the tallest drawers the contents allow.
Three layouts that cover most shops
Tool crib or inspection: mostly shallow
Many 2 and 3 inch drawers with partitions and bins, one 5 or 7 inch drawer at the bottom for the odd large item. On a 900 housing: 75, 75, 75, 100, 100, 100, 125, 150. Cribs are about finding things, and a shallow drawer shows everything at once.
Maintenance and MRO: the balanced stack
The configurator default and the shape of most stocked models: two 2 inch drawers, three 3 inch, two 5 inch on a 750; add a 7 and a 9 at the bottom on a 1350. Hand tools up top, cordless tools and fixtures in the middle, the heavy spares low.
Machine shop and heavy tooling: fewer, taller
A 3 inch drawer or two for measuring tools, then 5s for tool holders and cutters, then a 7 and a 9 at the bottom for chucks, vises and fixtures. On a 1350: 100, 150, 150, 150, 150, 200, 200, 250. Fewer drawers, so it costs less than the crib layout on the same housing, and everything heavy stays below the waist.
All three are a starting point in the configurator: pick the housing, set each drawer, and it prices the cabinet as you go and stops you at the housing total.
Every stocked model and its drawer stack
These ship in one to two weeks with free freight. The stack is listed by drawer count in each height; on the cabinet the shallow drawers sit at the top and the tall ones at the bottom. If none of them match, the configurator builds any stack the housing allows in three to six weeks.
| Model | Housing | Drawers | Drawer stack | Delivered |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MP06-0501A | MP 600 | 5 | 2 @ 2 in, 1 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in | $2,987.64 |
| HS07-0505A | HS 750 | 5 | 1 @ 2 in, 1 @ 3 in, 1 @ 4 in, 1 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $3,620.09 |
| HS07-0602A | HS 750 | 6 | 2 @ 2 in, 2 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in, 1 @ 9 in | $3,907.67 |
| HS07-0801A | HS 750 | 8 | 4 @ 2 in, 3 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in | $4,511.70 |
| MP07-0601A | MP 750 | 6 | 2 @ 2 in, 1 @ 3 in, 2 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in | $3,236.38 |
| ST07-0505A | ST 750 | 5 | 1 @ 2 in, 1 @ 3 in, 1 @ 4 in, 1 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $3,041.45 |
| ST07-0602A | ST 750 | 6 | 2 @ 2 in, 2 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in, 1 @ 9 in | $3,173.45 |
| ST07-0701A | ST 750 | 7 | 4 @ 2 in, 1 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in | $3,408.74 |
| HS09-0501A | HS 900 | 5 | 3 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $3,404.68 |
| HS09-0605A | HS 900 | 6 | 6 @ 5 in | $3,616.68 |
| HS09-0702A | HS 900 | 7 | 4 @ 3 in, 2 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in | $3,839.61 |
| HS09-0809A | HS 900 | 8 | 3 @ 2 in, 2 @ 3 in, 1 @ 4 in, 1 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in | $4,039.29 |
| SC09-0501A | SC 900 | 5 | 3 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $2,984.47 |
| SC09-0503A | SC 900 | 5 | 1 @ 3 in, 1 @ 5 in, 2 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $2,945.55 |
| SC09-0605A | SC 900 | 6 | 6 @ 5 in | $3,233.29 |
| SC09-0604A | SC 900 | 6 | 2 @ 3 in, 2 @ 5 in, 2 @ 7 in | $3,210.86 |
| HS13-0803A | HS 1350 | 8 | 6 @ 5 in, 1 @ 7 in, 1 @ 9 in | $4,649.34 |
| HS13-0801A | HS 1350 | 8 | 5 @ 5 in, 3 @ 7 in | $4,837.99 |
| HS13-0902A | HS 1350 | 9 | 3 @ 3 in, 3 @ 5 in, 3 @ 7 in | $4,910.40 |
| HS13-0903A | HS 1350 | 9 | 9 @ 5 in | $5,135.19 |
| SC13-0702A | SC 1350 | 7 | 3 @ 5 in, 2 @ 7 in, 2 @ 9 in | $3,833.98 |
| SC13-0801A | SC 1350 | 8 | 5 @ 5 in, 3 @ 7 in | $4,213.24 |
| SC13-0902A | SC 1350 | 9 | 3 @ 3 in, 3 @ 5 in, 3 @ 7 in | $4,440.96 |
| SC13-0903A | SC 1350 | 9 | 9 @ 5 in | $4,547.42 |
| SC13-1017A | SC 1350 | 10 | 6 @ 4 in, 4 @ 5 in | $4,978.44 |
25 models, generated from the live catalog, so the prices here are the prices on the product pages. Keyed alike, Bright Blue, fork-truck or mobile base as listed on each model.
Mistakes we see on incoming orders
- One height everywhere. A cabinet of nine 5 inch drawers is right for bins of spares (we stock two of them for exactly that), and wrong for hand tools, which end up two layers deep and invisible.
- The tall drawer at the top. It becomes the junk drawer. Tall goes low.
- Buying drawers to buy storage. Every extra drawer is another set of slides you pay for. If the contents can share a partitioned drawer, let them.
- Forgetting the 440 lb. An 11 inch drawer full of steel stock can pass 440 lb. Split it across two drawers or move the stock to a shelf cabinet.
- Ordering the layout before measuring the tools. A cordless drill standing on its battery is about 9 inches tall; on its side it needs a 4 or 5 inch drawer. Measure the ten biggest things first.
Frequently asked questions
What drawer heights do Lista cabinets come in?
Eight: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 inches of usable interior height, which Lista calls 75, 100, 125, 150, 175, 200, 250 and 300 point drawers. Every drawer is full extension and rated for 440 lb regardless of height.
How many drawers fit in a Lista cabinet?
As many as add up to the housing number. A 750 housing takes 750 points of drawers: ten 2 inch drawers, five 5 inch drawers, or any mix in between. A 1350 eye-level housing takes 1,350 points, which is why the stocked eye-level models run seven to ten drawers.
Can I mix drawer heights in one Lista cabinet?
Yes, and nearly every cabinet does. The usual layout is shallow drawers at the top for hand tools and small parts, mid-height drawers in the middle, and one or two tall drawers at the bottom for heavy or bulky items. The configurator lets you set every drawer individually as long as the total matches the housing.
What is a Lista drawer point?
Lista's unit for drawer front height. A 75 point drawer is the 2 inch drawer, a 300 point drawer is the 11 inch drawer, and a housing is named by the total points of drawers it holds: a 750 housing holds 750 points. The two digits in a Lista model number are the housing height class: 07 is the 750 housing, 09 the 900, 13 the 1350, so HS13-0902 is a 1350 housing with nine drawers.
Do taller drawers cost more?
Only a little. Lista prices by the drawer, and going from a 2 inch drawer to an 11 inch drawer in the same series adds roughly a quarter to a half to the price of that one drawer. What moves the price is the drawer count: a housing full of 2 inch drawers costs far more than the same housing with five 5 inch drawers, because you are buying twice as many slides, fronts and locks.
Can I change a Lista drawer layout after I buy the cabinet?
Yes. Drawers are individual assemblies on their own slides, so a drawer can be removed and a different height fitted, as long as the new set still adds up to the housing. In practice most shops change what is in the drawers, not the drawers, so it pays to get the layout right at order time.
What is the best Lista drawer layout for a tool crib?
Mostly 2 and 3 inch drawers with partitions and bins, and one 5 or 7 inch drawer at the bottom for the odd large item. Tool cribs are about finding things, and shallow drawers put everything in one layer where it can be seen.
Own Vidmar cabinets too? Vidmar sizes its drawers differently (model numbers rather than points, 2 1/4 to 14 7/8 inches usable). Our sister brand covers that line at Echo Industrial Source. For the footprint side of the decision, see Lista cabinet dimensions; for what goes inside the drawers once the stack is set, see drawer bins and organizers.