A Custom IKEA LIXHULT Pantry

5/28/2018

I recently finished installing a pantry that's more like a sculptural assemblage than a piece of furniture. I'll show you the glamour shot first:

A retired kitchen designer recently contacted me for a little help hanging cabinets in her own home. She had recently purchased her house, and the kitchen didn't have much storage.

Since the sink is on a peninsula overlooking the living room, there's a whole kitchen wall that doesn't have upper cabinets, so she had to come up with a storage solution on one of the other walls.

Her plan began with a bunch of cabinets from IKEA's LIXHULT line. These are like sleek little metal storage lockers, and they come in a variety of colors and sizes. Here they are on the IKEA website. Note the rail on the inside of the door. Perfect for holding recipe cards and notebooks!

We created a collage of fourteen cabinets, which turns out to be a generous amount of storage space.

Although IKEA cabinets are well-known as a "DIY" brand, this particular installation wasn't for amateurs. A cabinet like this is heavy when it's full of food, and that means that each cabinet must be fastened to a stud in the wall. That's tricky with such small boxes like these, since a stud isn't always where you want it to be!