Build a Custom Knife Drawer Organizer Inexpensively [DIY]

By Jason Fitzpatrick, LifehackerMarch 29, 2010 at 01:00PM

Build a Custom Knife Drawer Organizer InexpensivelyKnife drawer organizers are either moderately priced and not custom or custom-made and expensive. This easy-to-execute hack gives you a custom organizer for your cutlery drawer on the cheap.

Over at the DIY blog IKEAHacker, reader Laura was disappointed to see IKEA had discontinued their cheap knife drawer inserts. Rather than pay expensive shipping fees to get the organizer she wanted shipped to Italy, she made her own:

I measured my longest knife blade for the length of the long slats, and steak knife blades for the length of the short slats. I began to hot-glue the slats on the Ikea rubber drawer liner to line them up and prepare them for screwing, from the other side…. but I discovered that the hot-glue fused fully with the rubber of the drawer liner and [created] a very strong hold. So… all I did was just glue the little lengths of wood and spent a total of €5 in materials.

You can pick up wooden slats like the ones she used at any hardware store or craft store, one or two 3ft lengths for a few bucks should be more than enough for even a large knife drawer. The best part about the project—inexpensiveness aside—is how you get a perfect fit for your knives without any wasted space.

Have a clever kitchen hack to share? Let’s hear about it in the comments, bonus points for including links and pictures.