How To Create An Inexpensive Countertop Cabinet
See how we remodeled our entire kitchen on a tiny budget. Here is a kitchen countertop cabinet hack I’ve been obsessed with lately! If you loved this IKEA kitchen hack then you will definitely want to see more of our clever kitchen hacks and DIYs. Follow along as we renovate our small outdated 1950’s home.
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IKEA Cabinets
We first measured the total distance from the countertop to the ceiling since I wanted the cabinets to touch the ceiling. I knew I wanted all of my upper cabinets to match so I chose a 40″ cabinet for all of my upper cabinets. This gave me 17″ between the countertop and the upper cabinet.
Unfortunately, the fridge cabinets are very limited so my only option was to use a 15″ cabinet. Since I had a 2-inch gap between the cabinets, I added a trim to cover it.
Also, If you don’t like the trim in the center of the cabinets, you could raise the bottom cabinet and add trim around the bottom instead. This was my original plan but we had already installed outlets behind that cabinet that wouldn’t allow us to raise the lower cabinet.
Center Trim
In order to add trim between the cabinets I first placed a couple of 2″ pieces of wood between the countertop cabinet and upper cabinet to keep them from moving. I then glued a 2″ piece of MDF trim to the 2×4’s, flush with the cabinets, and caulked the seams.
I painted the trim in BM Chantilly Lace to match the rest of the trim in the kitchen, I found that this color was a close match to our cabinets.
Crown Moulding
I also layered 2 pieces of 3″ MDF trim to the top of the cabinets as crown moulding. If you want to find out how I built the crown moulding, you can click HERE for details.
IKEA Cabinets
All IKEA cabinets use standard Sektion cabinets that fit all their cabinet doors. You can then choose IKEA cabinet doors or even have custom doors added to them. I chose the IKEA matt white Axstad doors. The upper cabinet is a 24″ x 40″ double door and the lower cabinet is a 24″ x 15″ fridge cabinet with a garage door hinge.
Pro tip** I highly recommend purchasing a hinge like this one HERE rather than the standard one that IKEA sells because it’s challenging to get things in and out of the microwave.
If you loved this kitchen countertop cabinet hack then you will love our other kitchen hacks and tips that saved us thousands on our kitchen renovation. You can check out my kitchen renovation page HERE.
