I think the safety issue is that with this style, the contents are right at a child's eye-level. They'd be much more tempted to play with this draw. I think you'd have to invest in a good child lock. With a regular drawer style, you could have it a slim profile be the top drawer. Less likely for them to easily see the contents. They might not even know what's kept in there. You could even have push release instead of a handle so it appears there is not even a drawer there. Same could be done for the vertical unit. I'd still want to use a child lock though, if I had a kid around. The knife blocks vary in price A LOT. Just saw 7 pce sets online for $69 on sale, $199, $274, $549... I would hope they include knives! You might be better off grabbing a bunch of the RETRATT blocks from Ikea.

@mwenn, I sort of do agree with you that hiding everything away till it's needed seems a little fake but when you live in a home as I do at present, with a very tiny kitchen and everything is out because there's nowhere to put it away, consequently, I have a very limited prep area, so in my new kitchen, I can't wait till everything is in a draw or in a cupboard, so that I can enjoy the freedom of having a clear work area. That doesn't mean I won't enjoy a cooking day where everything is brought out for it but most everyday cooking in my opinion, doesn't require all the big gun machines to be taking up bench space. I'm afraid you might think my new kitchen will be one of these "fake" kitchens but I can assure you it won't be but remember most of the photo's that get shown on Houzz, have been professionally prepared for the photo, with nothing out of place, "minimalist" with a perfect vase of flowers and so on like the photo above!!

Why thank you! Hubby originally wanted it white surround with all different coloured drawers, but I used my powers of persuasion to change his mind wink wink.

A practical advantage of the long-side only design is that it removes the pesky corners/shelf produced by the bottom rail that collects dust. Big bonus with a white kitchen