Stacking ikea cabinets facing different ways

6 years ago

It's been a while since I've done an ikea project, and a lot of the resources I had bookmarked on ikea hacks seem to be broken webpages. I know I've seen something like this before.

I'm trying to find pictures and ideas on how to

- stack ikea cabinets facing different directions

- secure a tall Ikea cabinet to the wall sideways

We have 90" x 24" deep Ikea kitchen cabinets in our garage on the same wall as the door. At the end of the row I would like to add a base 24" x 24" x 24" facing the same direction as the other cabinets. Above the base I want to install a tall 68" x 24" x 24" cabinet turned perpendicular to the base so that faces the stairs and gives me easy access to puppy supplies, the vacuum and steam mop, etc. I would have to cut both of these cabinets down (from 30" and 80") in order to match the height of the stairs and the top of the other cabinets. I realize I could just turn a 90" cabinet and install a shelf at stair level but then i would lose access to the lower portion of the cabinet. I have cut down other ikea furniture before, but just items where all I had to do was drill new holes. I have cutting tools and I can do pocket holes but I don't have a router, and I can't remember if there is any routing anywhere other than for the back panel that would have to be recreated. I thought this was a pretty simple modification but all I can find are examples of width adjustments, which seems more complicated.

I assume I can just secure the tall unit traditionally without the rail, but the rail does make it a little easier to hang, so I wondered if anyone has modified a cabinet to use the rail on the side instead of the back.

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Comments (3)

Hillside House
6 years ago
Is there a particular reason why the lower one needs to be cut down, too? Why not keep it at the standard 30”, and just cut down the top one to 62” instead of 68”? That way you’re only messing with one cabinet, instead of two.

We did cut down a tall cabinet. You won’t need to rout anything, just drill holes for the camlocks and dowels. How are you planning on hanging it?

You will have to figure out the door heights, and if you can make it work with standard IKEA fronts. (We are using custom fronts, so it wasn’t an issue.)

If it’s just shelves behind doors, you’re good, but you won’t be able to do any pullouts.
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EvaElizabeth
Original Author
6 years ago
The lower one doesn’t absolutely have to be cut down, but taking into account the feet to elevate it off of the garage floor, the cabinet facing the door wouldn’t be level with the threshold. It would only be 7” higher, but it would sure be a lot easier to get the vacuum and the rolling bin I already keep there inside a raised cabinet instead of dragging them down to the side of the stairs. A couple of times my kids have accidentally dropped the vacuum onto the concrete garage floor trying to lower it down next to the stairs. I actually wasn’t especially determined to cut down the lower one, I agree it would be easier to cut one, but now that I wrote my reasons here I really want to cut both! Maybe it would be better to cut the base cabinet from the bottom and the tall cabinet from the top?

Right now I’m not planning to add a door to the tall cabinet. The other cabinets have doors and a couple of pullouts, but this one is really just like an endcap.

I did it plan on two drawers for the base cabinet. I thought it would still work to use a 15 and 10 inch drawer front to equal 25”. The top drawer front would be an inch taller than the cut down base, but I assumed it wouldn’t matter because it wouldn’t obstruct anything since it will be turned the other way. The top drawer front would overlap the side panel. This is all assuming both cabinets are actually 24” square.

I would like to hang it with the rail if I can replicate the correct holes on the side of the cabinet. But I don’t mind adding a mounting strip and hanging it traditionally.
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EvaElizabeth
Original Author
6 years ago
I bought the cabinet on impulse without finalizing my plan - I went to return extra pieces we didn’t use on the rest of the wall. When I got home, I thought I would only cut the top cabinet after all, but after I put the base together I realized the spacing looked a little tight. Once I cut down the upper to match the height of the other cabinets, it will be 60 inches. My broom would barely fit, and my microfiber floor duster thingy wouldn’t fit at all. How tall should a broom/tool cabinet be?
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Stacking ikea cabinets facing different ways

Comments (3)

Hillside House

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Stacking ikea cabinets facing different ways

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Hillside House

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