It is essential to be organized in the kitchen. Cooking can be stressful enough as it is. Who needs the extra frustration of shuffling through cabinets searching for the next ingredient? My wife and I solved our own storage dilemma once and for all by converting all of our lower kitchen cabinets — originally outfitted as cabinets with regular doors — into cupboards made of drawers. Now finding things couldn't be easier.
My wife and I are big organizers in our home, always looking for ways to make the process of finding and using things more streamlined. We of course brought this philosophy into our kitchen—having a cabinet for the flours, and a cabinet for the oils and vinegars,and so on—but it wasn't enough. The problem was the lower kitchen cabinets themselves, as they required you to crouch down and take the cooking ingredients through a few rounds of musical chairs before finding what you needed. There's the sherry vinegar!
We deliberated on the best way to change all this until we finally got the idea of converting all our lower kitchen cabinets into pull-out drawers. Having kitchen cabinets from IKEA made this conversion simple as we just had to invest in some RATIONELL extending drawers. We were able to keep all the original doors intact, by swapping in hinges with a wider door opening angle — to give the drawers the freedom to pull out.
See the IKEA products Chris used:
• RATIONELL Drawers
• RATIONELL Drawer Fronts
• INTEGRAL Hinges
• DROPPAR Jars
• IKEA 365+ Jars
• KRUS Jars
That solution wouldn't work for a cabinet door sandwiched between the oven and the fridge, however. So we mounted that door directly on the drawer, in place of a drawer front, to allow it to simply slide straight out.
To complete this project, we also purchased several storage containers — plastic ones with flip top lids for sugars and rice, larger glass ones for flours, small square ones for noodles. Our cart was loaded, as it all too often gets at IKEA, and we inevitably had to take a few more trips to get everything we needed but the result is marvelous.
We feel as if we're cooking in an industrial chef kitchen now. When we slide open the drawers everything is in sight, ready to use, ready to put back. It's definitely been one of our more rewarding investments and anyone who spends a fair amount of time in the kitchen could save some time by doing it as well. Do this for all your lower cabinets to add a little more joy to your kitchen experience.
Related: Make the Most of Kitchen Drawers By Organizing Diagonally
(Images: Chris Perez)
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Lower cabinets outfitted with drawers are absolutely great. My old apartment had them, and I still miss that feature!
I *SO* love my cabinet drawers, especially for cookware and mixing bowls. For canned foods, though, I ended up writing contents and expiration dates with a Sharpie on the top of each can. Much cheaper than those fancy containers in the picture, but that drawer looks a whole lot more lovely than mine!
I've written a bit about this some years back: kitchen storage space
At that time the IKEA drawers were metal baskets. Although not very handy for small items, there will never be any crumbs in your drawers ;-)
I still highly recommend upgrading your kitchen cabinets this way. I figured out, that with my number of drawers instead of the standard boards I can store nearly double the quantity of stuff. Well organized and accessible, that is.
Silly question. Can these be put in non-ikea cabinets (assuming the measurements match)?
I think that would depend on the sizes of your cabinets, but you can do a websearch for pre-made roll-out drawers, or if you're feeling super-handy, plans for making your own.
My one problem with this is that things like spices and oils should never be kept right next to the oven. They shouldn't be exposed to heat like that.
I presume your budget was very tight, or else your Ikea cabinet doors were discontinued, because even better would be to have actual fronted-drawers, so you don't have to open the cabinet door to pull out the drawer.
I have such fronted-drawers (also Ikea) and I actually store cutlery, dishes and pots in mine. I also have one pull-out unit under my sink that holds 4 waste bins, and a smaller one beside it to act as my "under the sink" storage. I use the upper cabinets for food storage. I think once you convert to a drawer system you will never go back, you gain so much space and everything is so much more accessible - you will never again have to get down on your knees and reach into the back of a cupboard, or pull everything out to get at that one thing at the back.
Darn. I thought this was going to be a post about how to use Ikea pull-outs in non-Ikea cabinets.
I thought about doing this with my non-Ikea cabinets, but changing out the hinges turned out to be impossible in my case -- there would have been visible cut outs on the fronts of the cabinets which would have ruined the design. I do have my cabinets well organized and clutter free. Things I rarely use go into the back row of the cabinet. For 99% of my cooking, I use the same few pans and ingredients. Those things are kept in the front row.
Maybe it's my plebeian non-industrial oven, but I've never noticed any extra warmth coming through the cabinet, to heat my spices. If my oven WAS giving off that much heat, I would consider it a fire hazard.
Anyone know of a good solution like this for an undersink trash? I have a sliding trash can right now, but it's behind a regular side-opening cabinet door. It would be nice to be able to just pull the cabinet out, but then I think it would cause problems for when I need to access the undersink area (accessing plumbing, changing water filters, etc).
Of course you can use ikea drawers in non-ikea cabinets, as long as your cabinets aren't smaller than ikea's. If yours are larger, just get some boards to attach to the inside-sides of your cabinets to "narrow" them.
And if your cabinet doors' hinges are in the way of your drawer-mechanisms, switch to the pull-out version mentioned in the article, where the door is attached to the front of your bottom drawer.
The ikea drawers are high-quality construction, with wonderful dampers and so forth. However, it's also possible to just score some used drawers at a ReStore or similar. I saved hundreds of dollars on my ikea-kitchen remodel by not buying all new drawers. I find that most drawers manufactured within the last 15 or 20 years are smooth-glide and full-extension. There's no noticeable difference between their functionality and those of the few bonafide ikea drawers I did end up with.
I have pull-out drawers in my kitchen (non-IKEA) and they are the best thing ever to happen to lower cabinets. EVER.
You should invest in a label maker, they are awesome! :)
I just installed some similar drawers (from Lowe's) into our early-80's, too deep to be functional pantry. It's been a total game-changer. I kind of wish I'd known about the Ikea option though, it seems to be a bit cheaper than the ones I used.
weatherman, you can try these: http://www.hafele.com/us/products/trash-cans-recycling.asp
We have traditionally-styled cabinets: there is a rim around each opening and the door doesn't cover the entire cabinet front. A less-streamlined, more furniture-like appearance than Ikea and many cabinets popular now. It makes pull-outs by any manufacturer problematic, since you lose a little space on the edge of each cabinet. The pull-outs still might be worth it. I really miss my old kitchen that had a whole bank of large drawers and only a few bottom-row cabinets.
I know you didn't mention it in the article but how do you like having butcher block countertops on wood cabinets? I'm doing butcher block on my island for budget reasons and I'm losing my mind, thinking "oh my god me kitchen is going to look like it took a trip to the 70's!"
yours doesn't look bad from these photos.
The money I'm saving on the counter top, I'm using to outfit the whole thing in these pull outs. I can't wait!
we just remodeled our small kitchen (using ikea) and nearly everything i have below the counter is a pull out drawer. i honestly don't know why this isn't standard! it's such a world of difference. i am able to pack a lot more in a small space and not feel at all cramped. i'd never go back!
This article is a God send! I've been waiting for a solution and have held off on new countertops until I could figure out what to do with those horrible lower cabinets; you've pretty much saved the day. BTW, the sales help at Ikea doesn't! They sell, not much more.
OK, now my question: How do I deal with a double door cabinet that has a post in the center on the front? One guy I had out here said it couldn't be done because of that post. He said post is what keeps the door from swinging inside the cabinet. I found this hard to believe since the doors have those European hinges. Who can tell me how I can deal with this and explain it to a (?) carpenter? Good help is hard to find!!! Alice