Drawers (or other way to sort small stuff) in ikea Expedit/Kallax shelf?

July 2, 2018 9:15 AM

Is there a way to get four or more drawers into a single ikea Expedit shelf cubby? (13.25” W x 13.25” H x 15.25” D)

I have a couple of 5x1 Ikea expedit shelves that live right near my desk in my home office. I use them for storing a bunch of near-my-desk stuff (envelopes, chargers, markers, headphones...).
I’d like to be able to better “containerize” some of that stuff. What I’d really like is to put, I dunno, maybe 4 drawers into one of those shelf units. (6 or 9 drawers would also be okay...)

The space inside each cubby us around 13.25” wide x 13.25” high x 15.25” deep.

Here is what I am hoping for:

- A way to divide one cubby into a number of smaller containers (4 or 6 or 9 or whatever)
- Hoping to spend not too much money ($100 would be okay. Less is great. $200 would be a stretch...)
- I don’t want to have to build anything (I am not handy, and also I am short on time)
- Does not have to be pretty, though maybe I would prefer not to have, like, cheap translucent plastic. The shelves are a dark brown/black, so something that is close to that is nice, but not essential.
- Use the space reasonably efficiently.

I know that Ikea sells these drawers. But that just breaks one cubby into two drawers, and I’m hoping for greater containerization for smaller stuff. Also I’m a little hesitant because I worry they’ll be some work to assemble/install...

I’ve spent a ridiculous amount of time searching online, but have not found anything that would fit well into the space of that size.

Any suggestions? Places to look? Specfic ideas for modular drawers? Some other strategy I am not thinking of?

posted by ManInSuit to Home & Garden (14 answers total)

Response by poster: (and - I don't need something custom built or fancy. Some decent plastic modular drawers that fit that space would be fine. These seemed great, but maybe a bit too big, and don't seem like they'd fit the space well...)
posted by ManInSuit at 9:18 AM on July 2, 2018

You can subdivide any larger drawer that fits your units with Bristol board from the dollar store. It takes a little planning, scissors or paper cutter, but it's not the same as trying to build something out of wood.

Or get the Ikea drawers, and add their version of the Bristol board hack.
posted by maudlin at 9:28 AM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

These Moppe drawers sit well in that space - I have a couple of sets in my Kallax unit. They only fill about half-way depthwise though.

I also have some of the Kallax drawers you linked to. They took me no time at all to assemble, requiring only a pencil, a screwdriver and something to hit a plastic fastener with. My only issue with these drawers is that they're quite shallow, like a lot of Ikea drawers, and I've ended up having to make a custom insert to give the drawers a decent capacity.
posted by pipeski at 9:28 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, pipeski! A question: You write that the kallak drawers are shallow and needed custom inserts. I'm not sure I understand. Aren't they just the depth of the Kallax unit? (like 15" or so)?
posted by ManInSuit at 9:34 AM on July 2, 2018

Not sure if any of their options will suit your needs, but there's a scrapbooking company that makes several nice Kallax inserts. They're not cheap and they're very specific to certain craft supplies, but this one's got a bunch of small cubbies and this one has a bunch of shallow drawers (the configuration option with a couple deeper drawers might be perfect).
posted by katieinshoes at 9:51 AM on July 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

The kallax drawers are shallow bottom to top - like you'd think they'd be 6" deep at least since the cube is 13" tall, but they're not, they're just a few inches deep. They're also shorter than you'd think (not 15" - 12" maybe?)
posted by brainmouse at 9:59 AM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

And yeah, the IKEA-sold drawers do a poor job of maximizing space. They lose a lot of width to the drawer slides + the thickness of the drawer box, and then the drawer box isn't nearly as tall as the drawer front. I have a bunch and I'm very happy with them, but I don't need to cram very much into each drawer.

Another thing that's not exactly what you're looking for, but maybe still useful: Walmart carries a Kallax knockoff, which has "x" and "+" shaped dividers that fit in a Kallax just fine. I have a few of the x-shaped ones, and they're a couple millimeter smaller than a perfect fit, but that's barely noticeable.
posted by katieinshoes at 10:13 AM on July 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

I get some pre-prepared foods at Trader Joe's and they usually come in a sturdy rectangular black plastic container. They work well for drawer organizers. You can make them smaller by cutting in half, sliding the pieces together to preferred size, duct tape(glue if you want to be fancy).
posted by theora55 at 10:42 AM on July 2, 2018

I have the Ikea Expedit, which was the precursor to the Kallax, and I have the drawers made for it from Ikea, and I use the Container Store's Smart Sort products to organize the drawers- this one in particular fits perfectly inside the drawers. The Container store has many other types of drawers that you might find work within the Kallax.
posted by momochan at 11:42 AM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

This Etsy seller makes modular Kallax-compatible drawer inserts that are either 5 or 6 drawers tall.
posted by drlith at 12:10 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

The Ikea Lekman line has drawers that fit Expedit/Kallax. The small ones don't appear to be available online at the moment, but I saw the somewhat transparent red ones (which don't really stand out much in a black-brown shelf) in store in Emeryville as recently as two or three weeks ago. I am pretty sure they have been temporarily unavailable a couple times, only to come back in different colors, so perhaps that will be the case again.

Note what is currently shown on the Ikea site is a huge drawer that takes a whole Expedit cube spot. I mean the smaller ones that come as drawer units that fit two to an Expedit cube, and the drawer unit either has one full width drawer, or two half width drawers. If you search "ikea lekman red 2 drawer" you can see them.
posted by ktkt at 12:23 PM on July 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Like katieinshoes, I use the walmart dividers with the kallax, only mine are the "+" shape. Each cubby is about 6 1/4" wide by 6 1/8" tall and the full depth of the shelves. It would be easy to use shoeboxes or similiarly-sized containers as drawers in them. They're not a perfect fit in the kallax - a little wobbly if the upper shelf contents are unbalanced - but I think that could be solved with a well-placed piece of cardboard if it's an issue.

I also have the kallax drawers and they are very easy to assemble, but don't really use the full space well.
posted by Ann Telope at 3:12 PM on July 2, 2018

I have a kallax and the drawers aren't great--though they are pretty easy to install. Honestly, I've felt that it's been easier to organize by getting a basket for each of the cubes and then making some kind of divider system within each basket.
posted by TwoStride at 3:57 PM on July 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks for all these amazing answers!!! Weirdly, after all this combined internet brainpower, I found these. They were in a Staples store here in Toronto. As near as I can tell, there is no other place to find them: They are not in US staples. They are not even available online in Canadian Staples stores. They do not seem to be available anywhere else that I can find.

They are not perfect. But they are pretty good for what I want. See here to see how I set them up.
posted by ManInSuit at 1:13 PM on July 4, 2018