Converting Kitchen Shelves into Drawers

The lower cabinets where I store most of my canned goods and baking supplies are deep, dark, and inconvenient. Tired of losing things in the back corners, not to mention pulling everything else just to get to what I need, I decided to install roll-out cabinet drawers. In my tiny kitchen, this turned out to be a very easy space saving solution.

I picked up these easy-to-install roll-out cabinet drawers from The Container Store. And when I say easy-to-install, I mean it. It took longer to take all the food out of the cabinet than it did to install the drawers. The roller frame screws into the cabinet shelf and then the drawer attaches to the frame. The drawer and frame are steel reinforced polypropylene and can support up to 6o pounds. Now I no longer have to kneel down and dig into the back of the cabinet for that lost can of peaches!

The Container Store has a few different roll-out cabinet organizer options to fit almost any cabinet size - including a stainless steel option from simplehuman that would look great in a modern kitchen!

Comments (21)

Cool idea. My kitchen is so small that it only has one lower cabinet like this, so the ~$50 price tag per rolling shelf doesn't seem quite as daunting.

Hm.. I should ask my landlord if we can install these. We have a semi updated kitchen, meaning new granite and a nice stove and sink, but the cabinets are ancient and groudy. This would be much better than reaching deep for plastic-ware lids and other assorted kitchen gadgets.

Laura
http://www.justalittlebit.net

Note to self....plan a trip to the container store.

It was a bit more work.... but we made pull out shelves in our deep, narrow bathroom closet (it's about 18" wide and a 2.5' deep), using plywood and drawer slides from Home Depot. We probably spent about $15/shelf. Finding something to fit the odd space would have been tough, so it was worth it.

I looked into this at our local Kraftmaid cabinet store. (My house came with Kraftmaid cabinets, so I started there.) They told me I could get roll-out shelves for most of the cabinet widths they sell. The shelves mount on the sides of the cabinets, so they wouldn't work on the double cabinets with the wood piece in the center.

The previous owner of our house installed all Ikea cabinetry in our kitchen, so I'm hoping Ikea might sell something similar. If not, I'm going to check out the container store! I'm not sure those will work for us, though--most of our cabinets don't have a full top shelf, just one that is about half the depth of the full cabinet.

I LOVED the half-depth shelves in the cabinets in my last apartment. WHen I build my present house, I asked the carpenter to make the upper shelf in each cabinet half-depth but he made them full-depth. I'm gonna pull a couple of them out and take them to so he can cut them down.

I found that with half-depth upper shelves, I could reach all the way into the bottom shelf, but with less storage space (you can only store half the stuff on a half-depth shelf) it forced me to keep my kitchen gear collection from ballooning out of control.

But I do like the pull-out shelves! 8-)

@hyzen - Yes, IKEA does sell similar roll out drawers. I think the ones they sell are even adjustable!

Neat idea.

Not so sure about this. I kind of feel like this is on-par with vessel sinks...it looks cool now but will likely be "out" in 5 years.

Oh how I wish I could do this in our kitchen! We have original 1950's metal cabinets. Not possible to attach drawer slides to either the sides or the shelf, as any attachment hardware will stick out right through the steel. And our lower cabinets are all small deep dark caverns, which would be so very much improved with roll out access...

what are the ikea version called?

@clampers Most of the time the pull-out shelves are behind closed cabinet doors, and they're primarily of a practical, not decorative function. Totally with you on vessel sinks though.

We've had pull out shelves (behind cabinet doors) for about 10 years. They're too functional to go out of style. I don't lose things in the back now. I can put heavy pots in the back and retrieve them easily. I'm not sure of the cost of these versus drawers, or which uses the space more effectively. I think drawers might hold more. But if you already have fixed shelves, as a retrofit, these are great.

i have been looking for the perfect kitchen runners. love these in the grey houndstooth print. where are they from??

Yes Ikea door cabinets can easily be converted to drawers or baskets behind the door, or all drawer-fronts instead of a door, or open shelves, or a pullout larder unit with shelves. It's one of the things that impressed me the most about their kitchens. I'm planning on changing open shelves to a larder front with pullout drawers, two years after installing my kitchen.

Very well done!! I will never ever have deep base cabinets without drawers or sliding wire baskets.

My kitchen cabinets are from IKEA. At that time they sold sliding wire baskets. I guess, today they offer drawers (Rationell series). I would definitely need double the space if I only had boards in my cabinets. Apart from not being able to keep it organized properly.

I've written about my kitchen storage space (with photos) in my blog: http://www.katzentisch.com/2009/07/kitchen-storage-space-base-high.html

@sslove4shoes: the rug is FLOR. i think houndstooth is still available.

@smallhappyhands: perhaps there is a way you could hot-glue a heavy duty magnet to the bottom of the drawer frame so that it would stick to your metal cabinet shelves? just a thought.

If you can't install these in your cabinets, you can get something self-contained like Elfa - when on sale in January. Pricey, but they have sizes to fit base cabinets.

I used wicker baskets that pull out too. works like a charm, and looks neat.

Also www.shelvesthatslide.com. Custom made, wooden pull-out shelves and other stuff. I just got 4 for $44 each and love them- has completed changed the organization of the kitchen! My husband said they were easy to install. They arrived on time, no problem with ordering. Highly recommend!