I have a 30 year old kitchen, but I'd recently been in my local Ikea (Elizabeth, NJ) and found their half-moon blind corner shelves on sale. I figured I didn't have much to lose since they were $5.00 each and I bought 2. The only adaptation I had to make was to mount a 2x4 piece of wood as an upright to attach the bracket to. Since it's intended to fit inside the Ikea brand cabinets, the bracket was obviously specifically designed to easily attach to them, but my cabinets had a much thinner door post, so the 2x4 beefed it up. They are the single biggest change this kitchen has had in 30 years - and if, in my soon to begin remodel, I have to have a blind corner cab again, I will be re-installing these. Just an FYI - as of 2 weeks ago the Elizabeth IKEA still had piles of these 1/2 moons for $5 as well as the full lazy susans for $10. They were in the midst of remodeling the kitchen department. Anyone who wants to experiment, now's the time to pick those up. Helene

Hi damiarain, thanks for your taking the time to look at this, let me explain the reasoning for few of the things you discuss: 1. The cabinet next to the fridge is not a pantry, its a pull out cleaning closet, for a broom, swiffer, microfiber mop, vaccum cleaner... We dont really have anywhere else on the main floor to put these cleaning gear. If we remove this cabinet from the kitchen we'd still need to have a cabinet or closet somewhere else on the main floor for these items as i do not think its convenient to have these in the basement or upper floor. I did try to place this elsewhere but settled to have it near the sink as it made sense (garbage is under sink) but am open to relocating it. 2. Concerning the cooktop, although the base cabinet is 36in, the cooktop itself is actually 30 7/8" . The hidden range hood is 30in width with 385 CFM, i was told this would be ok but your comment is making me doubt that now... Could this be an issue? The height distance between cooktop and hidden range hood is 18.5in in case that matters? In terms of aesthetics, I do like this hidden style, i generally find that the classic range hoods (the ones with a lip sticking out of the cabinet) are ugly, alternatively the other chimney range hoods styles can be very nice however i find they look better when there is a lot of clearance on both sides of the chimney hood, it generally means more backsplash ($$) and less storage. When chimney range hood are squeezed in between cabinets i find it a bit awkward, the whole point of these chimney hood i find is to be kind of a accent/focal point, so it kinda defeat the purpose if its narrowly flanked by cabinets that hide it.. So i went with the hidden fan style instead, it creates a clean uniform look with the other cabinet around. 3. the idea with all the cabinets is that it creates a lot of vertical panels that are all the same size, so again it looks clean and symmetrical and i was reading that one way to make a room appear bigger is to draw the eye to the ceiling which can be achieved with lines. In the example you shared, the corner space seems to be kinda lost? im not sure how it works, there is that 21' cabinet in front of another cabinet thats in the corner partly obstructed. 4. You are right about the microwave being a bit high, we changed the location of the microwave a few times, but we found that having it a bit higher (still usable) is better than having it in a base cabinet (under counter), we rather tippy toe than bend down ;).

1st off this kitchen aesthetically looks much better than the last one you posted. Good job. My only suggestion on this plan is to remove the open shelves beside the hood fan and put a white upper cabinet on either side. I think that the open shelves on the end of the pantry look very nice but the ones by the stove look odd, especially with there not being any on the other side of the hood fan. If you really want the open shelves by the stove I would then put open shelves on both sides of the range to finish the end of the uppers where the lowers end. I actually think that the herringbone tile would look great. The rest of your kitchen does not have much for pattern or texture so the herringbone would great a nice feature.

Whenever folks on this site claim ikea cost benefits disappear after taking into account labor costs, I assume they must be nuts or a competitor. Typical assembly costs are $100 ish per cabinet. So with an average kitchen you are looking at an additional $3000. But the qaulity of ikea boxes and hardware is unparalleled until you get to midrange cabinets. When we have done kitchens in ikea, the cabinets were maybe $6000-$10k, plus add $3000 for assembly…. but getting anything comparable in other brands would have been at least $40k (ten years ago, so adjust all numbers for inflation). That price differential obviously leaves a huge buffer to add semi custom doors and still end up way ahead. Also, I never understood the complaints and sizing and needing fillers. We had runs in both kitchens that had hard stops at both ends, and never needed more than an inch filler (which was necessary regardless for being able to open the doors).