How to: Elevate IKEA METOD kitchen countertop

Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers

Materials: 1x METOD cabinet with 140cm height, 1x MAXIMERA drawer 10cm height, rest of drawers at your own discretion

Usually the kitchen countertop height is fixed and can only be varied by adjusting the legs a few centimeters. With about 2 meter body height I needed something higher to avoid bending forward and hence back pain. So I created my own elevated workplace in the kitchen. The rest of the kitchen has the regular height to fit the parts, which are only available in regular sizes: The stove, the dishwasher, my girlfriend.

I can only speak for the european kitchen system called METOD (SEKTION in America).

The regular height of the kitchen is about 92cm (8cm legs + 80cm cabinet + 4cm countertop), the elevated workplace will be 102cm (8cm legs, 90cm cabinet, 4cm countertop). Since there is no cabinet with that height I had to buy the next bigger one with 140cm and cut the 50cm off. I had to use 10cm steps to perfectly fit the additional drawer front, otherwise there would be a gap between the drawers or the drawer and the countertop. You can also buy an additional drawer with 20cm height and shorten the 140cm cabinet by just 40cm, then it’s probably too high to work on, but it could be used to place some stuff (like a fruit bowl) on.

Step 1:

Align the two side parts and the back part of the cabinet and cut off the top 50cm. Don’t cut off the bottom, because you will want to keep the screw holes to fix the base part. The top of the cabinet will just be fixed with two metal struts, so you don’t need screw holes for these.

Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers
Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers

Step 2:

Place the cropped 50cm part of the right side on top of the upper part of the remaining 90cm of the right part. This way you can “copy” the three holes for the wall anchoring from the cropped part to the remaining part by drilling through the cropped part. Pay attention to not drill completely through the remaining part, these holes would be visible later on when the next cabinet is 10cm lower. Repeat this step for the left side.

Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers
Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers

Step 3:

Assemble the cabinet as you would do with a regular 80cm high cabinet, everything is just 10cm longer.

step3

Step 4:

Mount the regular drawers as you would do for a regular 80cm high cabinet (start counting the holes for the slides from the bottom). Mount the slides for the additional drawer using the upper hole of the slide and the topmost hole in the side. Insert drawers, place into kitchen unit, mount countertop (custom-made by IKEA or self-cut), ready.

Elevated IKEA METOD kitchen countertop | IKEA Hackers

~ Dominik Kalvelage