Introduction: Small (& Narrow) Kitchen Cart

IKEA HACK ! YAY ! A narrow kitchen cart to fit along your refrigirator, made from IKEA BEKVÄM spice racks.

I had no other choice but build it since the space was only 11cm wide, and nothing manufactured matched these dimensions.

Step 1: Bill of Materials and Tools

Bill of materials (total 60€)

  • 4 x BEKVÄM spice racks (16€)
  • 4 x copper tube (1m long / 12mm wide inside - 14mm outside) (26€)
  • 4 x omni-directional castors (~10€)
  • Wood varnish (~6€)
  • Wood paste (~8€)
  • 16 x less than 15mm wood screws (a board is 15mm thick) (~3€)

Tools

  • Screwdriver or screw-gun
  • Driller (the screw-gun in drill mode do the job just fine)
  • 14mm drill bit
  • Sand paper / sander machine
  • Glue gun

Step 2: Fill Up the Holes With the Wood Paste

I used a big syringe to do this job since the holes are pretty small. Don't worry if there is some paste outside the hole, you will sand it afterwards. Then let it dry, and sand the excess paste until you see paste only in the hole and no more around it.

If you look closely you can see that some air was trapped, I suggest you take better care than me when filling up the holes! Also, I picked the wrong wood color. But that's no big deal.

Step 3: Drill the Copper Tubes Holes

I used a paper template to mark the holes center with precision on the four boards. Place it at your convenience.

Step 4: Apply Varnish

Two layers. It sucks, it's slow to dry, but that's the rule.

Step 5: Sand the Holes

Remove the varnish by sanding the holes. I used a Dremel but you can do it with pretty much anything else. Then try to assemble the boards and tubes. You might have to sand some more for the tube to fit.

Step 6: Build the Bottom Board

Choose the ugliest board and make it the bottom board, because nobody will ever see it!

  • Add something to stop the tube from going further when inserted into the hole. I used a Meccano metal bit (but anything else like this will do the job). Screw it firmly into the board as it will support all the upper boards weight.
  • Screw the castors at each corners — and not anywhere else because the bottom board is very narrow and we need the most stability we can get!

(I cheated, I took the photo later!)

Step 7: Place the Boards and Glue It

  • Carefully place the boards where you want (in terms of height) along the tubes.
  • Ensure it's straight with a level
  • Seal it with hot glue (or something else if you have a better and classier idea!) so it won't move

Step 8: Build the Ledges

  • Sand one side of the ledges until they can stand on their own (we will glue it to the boards later)
  • Varnish it (you know the rule)
  • Cut the small bits at the ends because we won't need it
  • Glue it on the side of each board to prevent stuff from falling. Only one side because we wouldn't have much space otherwise (and also because each IKEA rack only comes with one ledge each).

Step 9: ????

Step 10: PROFIT!!!!