A couple of months ago, we finished this exciting kitchen in Renton, WA. I say exciting, because it's packed full of fun little customizations that you don't see every day in your typical IKEA kitchen. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance yet to go back and get the final pictures, but I decided to post the pictures I have now so you can see some of the cool details.

IKEA high-gloss white cabinet installation ( picture taken before blue protective film was fully removed)

In the picture above, you can see that we took advantage of the home's 9' ceilings by stacking an extra row of 15" tall cabinets on top. In previous decades, the common school of thought was to keep all the cabinets low and within reach, so they would either drop the ceiling, build a soffit, or just leave an empty space above the cabinets, as was the case in the original kitchen.

original kitchen cabinets didn’t extend to ceiling, leaving unused space

One of the more popular features of IKEA cabinets is the pull-out shelves. Unfortunately, they don't make the pull-out shelves for their 30" wide cabinets. [update 2026 - IKEA does offer pull out shelves for 30 and 36” cabinets in their new Sektion line (these were the old Akurum cabinets)] However, since all the hardware for IKEA cabinets is made by Blum, we decided to look to them for a solution, and we were in luck. Blum makes a line called Tandembox and with the right combination of pieces, it worked out perfectly in our 30 and even 36" cabinets!

Blum Tandem boxes installed in IKEA kitchen cabinets

One of the challenges with this design was how to deal with the blind corner we had next to the microwave:

Blum Aventos parallel lift door (closed)

We didn't want to just leave an open space there for clutter to gather, but if we had used a standard hinged door, any items on the counter would have to be cleared away whenever you opened the door. Here again, Blum came to our rescue with their Parallel lift system from their Aventos line:

The homeowner came up with this cool idea for utensil storage based on something similar she saw on the internet:

The pull out trash drawer isn't really anything special, but I wanted to feature it here because I think every kitchen should have one. This one is 18" wide, which is just right for two trash cans to sit back to back. We put a pull out shelf on top to store extra trash bags.

IKEA pull-out trash/recycle in 18” cabinet

Finding a convenient location for outlets in the island can be a challenge, so this pop up outlet strip was a great solution. We set it up right next to the cooktop so they could use it to power their stick blender among other things.

Pop-up outlet strip for kitchen island (down)

Pop-up outlet strip for kitchen island (up)

Here are a couple of great uses for LED strip lighting:

LED light strips installed under countertop

Since these lights are so skinny, we were able to install them under the countertop overhang, allowing better visibility for these cabinets.

We installed the same lights under all the toekicks for accent lighting. These lights are also set on a motion detector located in the hallway, so they will come on automatically when you walk into the kitchen. Perfect for the middle of the night when you come down for a drink or a snack.

LED light strips installed under toe-kick, activated with motion/light sensor

Overall the kitchen came out great, and what a dramatic difference from before:

To see even more IKEA hacks, check out this post: More IKEA Hacks

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