Be careful when integrating the tall pantry with other cabinets.

Having used the Ikea planner to design my kitchen, I confidently ordered two tall pullout pantries (one for either side of the fridge) and an over the fridge cabinet measuring 36x24x24. My theory was that I could raise the legs on the pantries to ensure that the over-fridge cabinet would clear the refrigerator. The reality was that we couldn’t raise the pantries high enough because they had to connect to the adjoining base and upper cabinets. The uppers could be raised to match, certainly. But the adjoining base cabinets would have looked really odd if we had raised them to match the bottom line of the pantries, not to mention requiring very high toe kicks.

So I exchanged the 24” deep cabinet for a 15” deep one, and installed it with the top at the same level as the tall pantries. That left a big gap between fridge top and the cabinet, so I picked up a $1 shelf in the “as is” room, and installed it just above the fridge. I put it 6.25” below the fridge cabinet so that I have the option of making a door out of a shallow drawer front. In other words, I can cover the space if I get tired of looking at the trays I plan to keep there.

When I exchanged the fridge cabinet, I also scaled back to a 30” wide cabinet because of the precious inch I lost in redesigning to accommodate the blind corner unit. My fridge is 32” wide, so we used a 2x4 at the front edge on each side to stabilize and provide an anchor for the filler piece. That worked out well. Here’s a photo of the over the fridge cabinet and shelf:

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How to use the irrational Rationell instructions for installing the insides of your pullout pantry:

I think everyone complains about Ikea’s wordless approach to instruction manuals, but the manual for the pullout pantry innards wins the prize for bizarreness. Here’s why:

First, the easy stuff:  Each Rationell drawer box contains a 20-page instruction booklet and 3 templates used to position the hardware on the door panel. Work your way through the whole booklet before lifting a tool. This booklet works for base and pantry pullouts, so it can be a little confusing. The 3 templates are specific to door style, so be sure you find the right template for your doors. For the tall pantry, this information is on page 12. You use the template at the bottom corners, and toward the top corners. Yes, the doors do have a top and bottom (see below for more on this.)

If you’ve assembled the base pullout unit, you may wonder where the wood plugs are to fill the holes where the hinges would be if you were installing a regular door. The answer: at the Ikea customer service department, if you’re lucky. You can also get extra bumpers there.

Assembling the drawers

My Ikea order included the following drawer hardware for each pantry:

2 Rationell deep full extend drawers (600.447.33)

3 Rationell full extend drawers (500.347.24)

3 Rationell drawer fronts (900.544.23)

1 Rationell deep drawer front (100.544.22)

The instructions make it clear that the 2 deep drawers attach at the top and bottom of the door panel. How they attach is less clear. (more on this later)

Applying logic, I figured that the 3 shallow drawers would attach to the 3 drawer fronts. Good so far…maybe.

But the instructions don’t tell you what to do with the deep drawer front kit (100.544.22). It comes in a box filled with 2 metal drawer pieces, a rod, a bunch of screws and a bunch of white plastic rod-attachment pieces. If you’re like me, you realize you have this extra kit and go looking for pictures in the catalog or website of what the pantry actually looks like inside. You discover that the second drawer from the bottom actually has rods across the front and sides. You deduct that the deep drawer kit actually goes with one of the shallow drawers to convert it to a deep drawer that’s not attached to the pantry door panel. If you try to assemble it that way, though, you discover there are no side rods, only one for the front. Maybe I’m stubborn, but only at this point did I put out the call for help.

When I called, my helpful Ikean told me the deep drawer kit was included in the pullout pantries for only 2 reasons: you need the screws and the white plastic rod attachment pieces from that kit in order to attach the deep drawers to the pantry door. But of course, how could I miss that! She expressed the hope that Ikea would someday just include these bits and pieces with the pantry itself, as it does for the base pullout pantries. She said I could toss out the metal front and back pieces that came with the kit, or buy a deep drawer unit so that I could get the rods that go along the sides of the drawer. I compromised and used the front and back with my shallow drawer, so it has a nice little rod across the front which is handy for pulling, but no side rods. Not perfect, but I got to return the spare drawer front and buy lunch with the $5 I saved! When I put out a query on the fansite, I found out other people had the same problem, or they had no problem because they’d been sold 3 deep drawers and 2 shallow drawers instead.

Here’s a photo of how the drawers look without the door attached:

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Attaching the pantry door panel

First try: The process of attaching the deep drawers to the pantry door was a comedy of errors. While I was at work and on the phone with Ikea about the mystery drawer kit, my brother was forging ahead. He figured out on his own that the rod attachments needed to be swapped. Here’s a picture of the deep drawer kit box, with the unusable rod attachments on the left (they come with the deep drawer box) and the replacement ones on the right:

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My brother didn’t realize that he was using the wrong screws for the brackets that you mount on the door and click in to the drawer box. In this photo, you can see (fuzzily) the brackets and the short fat screws that come with the drawer (600.447.33) (the WRONG ones) along with the longer, sharp screws that come with the drawer front kit (100.544.22). They’re the ones that come in sets of 4 attached to white plastic.

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It turned out that one of the pantry doors my brother installed was dinged up, so I removed all the hardware and exchanged it for a good one. (I left the other one up, so we’ll find out eventually if the wrong screws issue is really a crucial one.)

Second try: I set to work on the new door, only glancing at the inscrutable instructions and using the screws my brother had used. When the short fat screws seemed really ineffectual, I studied the instructions and discovered that the sharp, longer screws were required. Specifically, on page 3 of the instructions, the short fat screws were crossed out, but there was no signal about what screws should be used. At the bottom of the page, though, the long skinny ones were not crossed out, so I searched until I found them on page 14, being used to attach the bracket. Horrified, I tried to replace the wrong screws with the right ones, and stripped the holes. Ikea must see this problem a lot, because they made not a peep when I returned that messed up door!

Third time’s a charm: Finally, I set to work on the third round of door installation, the screws worked, and I thought I was done. But wait, there’s more! I put the door on upside down! There’s no suggestion in any of the instructions that the door panels have a top and a bottom, and this is probably not an issue with all door styles. But Lidingo has a horizontal piece across what I thought was the middle of the door. Well, it turns out it’s asymmetric. This won’t be a critical factor unless you’re installing 2 pantries, but keep in mind that you have to examine which way is up before you start drilling.

Okay, let’s make that fourth time’s a charm! I removed the door and all the screws and reinstalled it, again. It looks like Swiss cheese on the inside, but it works!

Was it worth the agony? Definitely! I got tons of efficient storage space and made a snug nook for my fridge. I think it’s a big improvement over the sprawl that existed in this space before. The fridge and 2 pantries take up the same space the fridge and the microwave cabinet used in this before photo:

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Here’s the finished look:

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