IkeaHack: Maximizing the Maximera

In our kitchen we have the 20cm wide Maximera pull-out cabinet to store our spices. This cabinet has three listed downsides: it is hard to install (a bit fiddly, I agree), not solid due to only having 2 runners (sure, but my spices are not that heavy) and it does not have a lot of usable space. There is quite a lot of room between the two drawers. It also has tapered sides that hide the runners, which make the drawers are pretty clumsy. You can't put a lot of items next to each other, or it will wedge against the tapered sides and easily tip over. This is especially true for the nice round glass spices containers I had envisioned to store in it.

Using a sheet metal brake I folded aluminium sheet to roughly follow the contours of the spice containers I have. One row of containers stands upright on a shelf, the other row lays at an angle. With some corner brackets I screwed the two shelves to the front panel and rear pole just underneath the top drawer. This gives ample room to reach into the bottom drawer, while giving very easy and visible access to the variety of spices.

After adding more and more spices over the years, we ran out of space again. Until we ran into these small foldable crates that are exactly the width of the drawers. With a bit of hotglue and plastic angle pieces, these crates sit nice and snug on top of the drawer to allow for even more storage. And you can slide them forward and backward to access the spices underneath. With this modification we are getting very close to maximizing our Maximera.