Beef Up Your Kitchen Storage With This Hack For An Existing Island

Running out of room for all your pantry essentials, dishes, and cookware? Increasing your kitchen's storage capacity can go a long way towards upgrading the functionality of your entire living space. Unfortunately, however, this kind of design change often poses a significant challenge for homeowners. Limitations in terms of square footage and overhead space for cabinetry can leave you feeling frustrated, especially if you're trying to find a new home for things like your big pots and pans or bulky appliances. Thankfully, if you have a kitchen island, you might already have the perfect space for building a whole new storage unit.

YouTube creator Kayla Simone has a great kitchen storage hack for homeowners that have a kitchen island with seating along the outside edge. In her tutorial video, she puts together a simple set of cabinets from IKEA, and then places them underneath her island, which has a significant amount of unused space below the countertop. She then frames the cabinet with wooden panels to make them look more luxurious, and places her kitchen stools back in place after installation. The end result is an elegant arrangement that might also make your kitchen more aesthetic.

The depth of the open space below Kayla Simone's kitchen island overhang left an extraordinary amount of room for new cabinets. If you have a similar setup in your kitchen, with an island seating area that has a lot of unused leg room, you might also want to leverage this space to create more storage. However, there are a number of design factors to consider before you begin this project. First, think about how often you use your island seats, and carefully measure the leftover depth under the countertop when someone's sitting in them. If you don't use these seats very often, you might get more functional value out of this area by removing them entirely. Otherwise, it's important to leave room for your knees.

Next, consider your building materials. The colors of both the cabinets and the trim boards around them should be consistent with your existing kitchen design. Make sure you select a sturdy material for the cabinet fronts, since your feet will naturally come into contact with them on occasion. While glass panes might look nice, they could prove dangerous. Remove any baseboard before installation with a Goldblatt Trim Puller or a similar tool. To close the gap between your new fixture and the sides of the island, you can use cabinet filler boards. Just as the creator does in her video, you can also build a wooden base that matches the dimensions of the cabinet to lift the unit a few inches.

If your kitchen island seating area doesn't have enough of an overhang for both new cabinets and your knees, there might still be a few ways to make room for more storage. If you have a longer island, you can shorten your existing seating area in favor of a few shelves, which you can install in a similar fashion to Kayla Simone. Alternatively, you might want to consider putting a new cabinet along the side of the island. If possible, select a furnishing that matches the width of the island and the colors of its cabinetry, so that it blends with your current kitchen design. Avoid placing the new unit in a walkway or within the main kitchen work triangle, which lies between the stove, sink, and refrigerator.

Putting up hooks along the side of your kitchen island for things like decor, mugs, or utensils is a smaller design change, but it can still aid you in keeping your countertops free of clutter. Reorganizing your cooking tools, pots and pans, and food containers can also go a long way in helping you find more storage space for your island. Whether you're looking to make a small change or willing to do a complete kitchen revamp, it's also a good idea to start with a full kitchen declutter. You might be surprised by how much space you're able to create just by sorting through your items.