An IKEA Kitchen Designed with Floating Shelves Instead of Wall Cabinets

Small kitchen spaces made more useful with IKEA’s KUNGSFOR wall rack system

This article is based on and inspired by an actual IKD design. We created a customer narrative to make it fun and easier to understand.

Any serious cook knows that an efficient kitchen is a more enjoyable kitchen. Two of our customers, Cassandra and Charles, knew this well when they recently asked us to design an IKEA kitchen for them that was chock full of accessibility.

“We’re avid cooks who use our kitchen a lot every day. We wanted to see our ingredients and have our cookware right at hand while we’re cooking — like a Julia Child-style, floor-to-ceiling pegboard layout,” Cassandra says.

That request — combined with the challenge of low ceilings in the original layout — called for a design that featured clever use of IKEA kitchen shelves rather than wall cabinets. So after doing some research on design Web sites like HOUZZ and Pinterest, the couple found IKD online and began working with IKD designer Frank on their small, 175-square-foot kitchen. Together, they combined IKEA’s SEKTION cabinetry framework with floating shelves from Semihandmade (SHM), along with IKEA’s KUNGSFORS wall rack systems to create a sleek and modern, yet warm, design theme. Frank offers: “Design-wise what also brings this urban kitchen together is Semihandmade’s Classic Walnut style [which are featured on] 12 side panels and 21 door and drawer fronts.” Specifically, the SHM cabinet fronts are seen on the base cabinets by the stove as well as the large center island. Their cost: $9,537 (including delivery), plus 10 IKEA cabinets which costed $2,080, (as well as $345 in standard Extra Items; $2,281 for countertops and $3,277 for appliances), for a total cost of $16,243 — well within Cassandra and Charles’ original budget of $20,000. Indeed, the look is complemented by Silestone Seaport Dark Grey countertops; a variety of stainless steel appliances, and plenty of natural lighting coming through the large, sliding glass doors. (Remember: IKD has been referenced by Martha Stewart Living as experts on how to reduce renovation costs.)

Another interesting element is how we “hacked,” or customized, a base cabinet on the opposite side of the kitchen to accommodate a 24″ undercounter microwave. This makes overall food prep more efficient as it frees up the traffic flow for both cooks. Cassandra concludes: “For home cooks like us, an open kitchen theme is so motivating. Having the ability to see everything provides for a much more spontaneous cooking style and rich cooking experience. It really allows our creativity to flourish. We love how well the SHM shelving works in this regard, and just adore the entire look and feel of our IKEA kitchen.”

Let’s see how Cassandra and Charles’ kitchen came together!

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Floating Away with Floating Shelves

One of the key elements of this IKEA kitchen is the use of floating shelves rather than wall cabinets.

IKD designer Frank explains: “With a low ceiling height of just 88-1/2” the clients knew that wall cabinets wouldn’t work well here, in fact they’d crowd the space. That’s why they decided to demo the 30″ walk-in-pantry — to make space for more open shelves and countertops.”

Specifically, the floating shelves from Semihandmade are seen on both sides of the kitchen, including on either side of the stainless steel vent hood, which provides ideal storage space for oils, flour and other ingredients – as well as a cookbook or two. Two other thick floating shelves are featured on the opposite side of the kitchen, above the forementioned base cabinet “hack” and undercounter microwave. “The use of the floating shelves establishes additional storage options for plates and glassware while still retaining the open feel. This was important for ensuring the kitchen functioned as well as it looked,” Frank says.

Cassandra concludes: “The floating shelves are by far our favorite part. They have made all of our meal times so much more enjoyable because everything is in plain sight and accessible. We’ve even organized the shelves by whether the ingredients are for meal prep, baking, etc. It makes everything – including clean up — even easier!”

Access Approved

Indeed, the couple insisted on maximizing every inch of their open floorplan.

To accomplish this, the design features Semihandmade’s Classic Walnut doors and drawer fronts on the base cabinets near the gas stove, running underneath the long countertop and ending underneath the drop-in sink by the dishwasher. The opposite side again offers additional drawers around the microwave, providing storage for dishes, utensils and linens, among others. There’s also a tall cabinet on the side of the 36” French door refrigerator and upper cabinets just above it as well.

The couple also elected to include IKEA’s KUNGSFOR rack systems, which are featured above the 30” stainless steel gas stove as well, and provides extra open storage for frequently needed cooking items, such as cheese graters and whisks. “The couple expressly prohibited us from designing corner cabinets and base cabinets with doors,” Frank describes. “The aim was to create a fast-moving, galley-style kitchen that was intuitive to their cooking needs.” Additional storage options include a spice rack, a cleaning rack and a trash pullout located near the sink.

Island Time

Cassandra and Charles also wanted a center island to serve as additional counter space and a seating area. “A big island was important for us and we wanted enough space for six stools. We entertain family quite a bit and I pictured a casual area to try out some new recipes and be able to banter while I cooked,” she says.

To that end, the island also features the 3cm thick Silestone Seaport Dark Grey countertops, which offset the Walnut doors seen on the four large, drawer fronts. (Designer note: Their kitchen had roughly 31 square feet of countertop at $91 per square foot for a total of $2,281.) Cheryl offers: “The island adds so much and is a perfect resting space for plates during meal prep, and for us when we’re eating!”

She concludes: “Our IKEA kitchen came out so much better than we could have hoped. We are so glad we found IKD who were able to cleverly use IKEA cabinets to get our small kitchen to feel spacious and perform so well!”

IKD’s Summary: This kitchen was unique in the use of floating shelves instead of wall cabinets. The clients did initial design research and knew that their space was limited, so our design challenge was to incorporate enough storage while improving efficiency. The result here is a sleek design theme with even sleeker storage solutions!

Learn more about how we can design your IKEA kitchen, bath, laundry room and other rooms at inspiredkitchendesign.com.