A magic corner is a kitchen corner storage system designed to maximize the underutilized space in the corner of kitchen cabinets. It is a clever and practical solution that optimizes corner spaces, often overlooked in traditional kitchen layouts. The system consists of moving baskets or shelves that glide out smoothly when opened, offering easy access to items stored in the blind corner of the kitchen counter.
Magic corners are tray systems installed into the difficult-to-reach corners of modular kitchen cabinet setups, typically a set of trays that use up the entire space while still being easy to access. These trays are positioned by a sliding system along the walls or doors. They are particularly useful for kitchens with limited storage spaces as they utilize the dead corner.
A magic corner sink creates ample space around the sink while providing ample storage for dishes. It is possible to stack dishware on the corner sink, creating a lot of space around the sink while providing ample storage for dishes. The magic corner doors pull forward about 10 inches and move to the side, opening into the kitchen area and away from the sink.
A magic corner is a modern corner storage system that consists of moving baskets or shelves. When the front panel of the corner unit is opened, these compartments glide out. The door and mechanism open into the kitchen area and away from the sink, making it easier to use and access the items stored in the corner.
In summary, a magic corner is a cleverly constructed kitchen corner storage system that maximizes the use of corner spaces in a kitchen. It features a slide-out mechanism that allows easy access to items stored in the blind corner of the kitchen counter.
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My first house was old. It had a nice size kitchen but little cabinets. It stopped shy on one corner. I plumbed and made space for my top-loading washer in the corner and the dryer to its right. So the washer was blocked with only “countertop” access. Worked great. Granted, if the washer needed repaired, the dryer would need to be pulled out. But it never did while I lived there. I’ve had other corner cabinet solutions, but my first one was by far the best use of space.
I had 3 corner cabinets in my old kitchen, very small space. I wanted to get rid of all of them, wanted a corner pantry but my kitchen is too small, so I went with a galley style so no corners. Kept the flat tall pantry, wall oven/microwave and fridge at the far end so the space was opened up. Designed it myself and got the Ikea person to check, they installed it and I’m so happy, all drawers so really easy access for an old chook like me haha.
We have a U-shaped kitchen with one leg of the U acting as a separator or breakfast bar from the family room. Our dead corner occurred where the wall with the sink met the breakfast bar section. I didn’t want to loose the corner storage and I dislike the turntables that are often installed in corner. So I had the contractor cut an opening on the back side of the breakfast bar, the side facing the family room. He framed it out and added a door that matched the rest of the cabinets. I access this storage from the family room side of the breakfast bar. It’s a great place to store larger things like cake carriers, punch bowls, etc. If you have the space, this could probable be accomplished with two base cabinets… one facing the kitchen and the other facing the family room. We didn’t have quite enough space for that but we found a way to make it work.
If the corner is adjacent to the sink unit, you might want to use a filler with a removable panel and then hide the gear for a five stage reverse osmosis water filtration system. That frees the under sink space where you would typically house that hardware. Consider making the unit slidable into the sink area for changing filters.
This time around, i had a walk in pantry at one end and a half wall to the dining room at the other end. So i simply put a standard cabinet in the corner and turned it 90° it so it opened into the pantry at one end and into the dining room at the other end. Presto! No pesky corner cabinet. No wasted space!
My husband customized my craft studio in our dining room. We used both upper and base cabinets from Home Depot. To solve the corner base cabinet issue and 3″ spacer required to ” make it work”, my husband custom built a card stock tower for my 8 1/2x 11 and my 9 x 12 card stock. This sits between the blind cabinet and the drawer set on the other side. I am really pleased with the modification. To complete the card stock tower; we purchased several white shelves in various sizes, hard board, metal shelf pins,and the jig.
Leave the space open with dummy doors and fill the space with a couple of small trolleys. You can pull trolleys in and out easily, for pantry-type storage or rarely used appliances they are great, they’re very adaptable and accessible and you can change your mind at a later date. It’s by far the best option.
I’ve got one more to add to the list (that might even save a little money): In our kitchen, we made a diagonal, similar to the diagonal cabinet you show, but with NO cabinet there. Our contractor built a couple of shelves that attach to the back and sides, with a base, too, of course. We bought a couple of big baskets that sit on the shelves plus we have access to the corners to store less used items. No wasted space! You just have to be OK with the open shelf look. You could probably get a matching door, but the installation gets quite a bit more involved.
We did the 45 degrees out from the wall option last year, we are very happy with how it turned out but it was by far the most challenging part of the kitchen install. Couple of points to note: You’re left with quite a bit of space behind the cabinet that you need to do something with, The most obvious thing is to build a 45 degree wall. Our hob was on this unit so we needed the wall for the extraction hood Unless you build the wall and build it directly behind the cabinet, the counter top will not be wide enough to reach back so you may need to get creative ( we added 2 inches of tiles at the back fo make up the difference) The counter top install is a lot more challenging for a diyer. This occupied my brain for a good month before hand! We used cover panels as the spacers. We got two standard cover panels, cut them half, attached a piece either side of the 45 degree unit and one on 90 degree units. They are installed flush to the base cabinet. It looks nice and tidy now, and it achieves the space for the drawers, but your way might be easier I think the plan and reality of where the units need to be adjusted to be right might be different so i would definitely be very cautious if you’re tight for space on your plan
Great article, not least for a good lesson in how to use the ikea kitchen planner! But you missed a cheeky one: (admittedly you can only do this in a new build or if you’re doing a bigger re-fit) you can lose the space in the kitchen and create a lower cabinet in the room next door, through the wall. The resulting cabinet, (in the room next door), would look flush to the wall; a little bit of space saving magic 😊
i did the blocked off corner for my kitchen but am fully utilizing the blocked off space. I opened the wall so that i could access the area from an adjacent hallway. I ran all the phone, TV, cable, and networking wires coming up into that area from the crawlspace underneath. Relatively easy, if a little low and cramped, to change connections around over the years as equipment and providers have changed.
Here’s my solution. I’m about halfway through my kitchen remodel as of this week. What I decided to do in the corner is put in a walk in closet there at a 45 degree angle similar to what Mark suggested. No lower or upper! Just a floor to ceiling closet with a double door opening. I’ll have a TON of space now, and nothing was wasted. Full disclosure, the whole job is being done with a semi-custom cabinet company (called Decora), but obviously the closet was a custom request. So I’m guessing IKEA probably doesn’t have a ready-made closet solution to choose from to pull this off. Does anyone know for sure?
I used the large corner cabinet that is supposed to have a lazy Susan in it. I got just the base. I have a gas cutoff pipe in this area and I needed access to it so I built my own shelves on just one side of the cabinet to work around this. The empty height of the other half where the pipe is lets me store tall cutting boards and baking sheets by standing them on end.
A tip from an ikea kitchen worker (Germany): You can put an 80 cm cabinet in the corner and just have the smallest door (20 cm) with a wide hinge to have better access. Or you pull it out a little more with a 40 cm door than you saved 20 cm in comparison to the big corner cabinet. You can also use the wall corner cabinets if there’s an obstacle in the corner and usually you don’t need filler it s enough to put a side cover on all four sides. Saves space and looks more neat!
At the top I had a corner cabinet and though at the top was a lot of space where I put holiday dishes at the very top. Again it was worth it. I had a lowboy for everyday dishes and silverware. with napkins and other in the dining area and just a 4 chair dining. I had an open living dining that the dining spilled a bit in the living room but it was not bad because the were the same. It worked for me in my 1000 foot condo.
Two comments: if you have a corner filler cabinet you can put in there the water boiler … I had ones a kitchen in a small flat like that which was the best use of such space that I have seen. Currently I have a kitchen with a angled corner cabinet. Pay attention that you do not stand „often” in front of it or the two neighbour cabinets otherwise you block the opening of three cabinets! In our case we have the cook top in the angle and the dishwasher next to it: this makes cooking as a couple an absolute nightmare as you always get into each others way! We are currently planning to redo this kitchen and will definitely not put a single appliance or sink in those three corner cabinets!
I had custom cabinets made, nothing fancy though. Couldn’t really figure out what to do with the corner because of the weird measurements etc. So we just made it. I told him to leave it like it is. I actually really like it. Is it is a storage place for very large items. That also happen to be relatively light. it works great for what I need it for. No shelves, no Lazy Susan. Just a space for big items.
Interesting options, thanks for sharing. I’m new to looking at Ikea and contemplating using their boxes with third party doors and drawers; the limitation on corner bases is indeed a challenge. One thought I’ve had is to create a custom size blind cabinet by utilizing only one door and a filler or end panel over the ‘open’ space from the ‘missing door’ plus the perpendicular filler to offset the next cabinet around the corner. This would also allow you to deal with that pipe cover corner you showed and/or simply ‘pull’ the custom blind base from the actual corner in order to not leave the whole corner void or even to cover a custom run length with an extremely flexible option. On planner looks like would work. Do you see any ‘gotchas’?
I know in addition to blocking off base corners you sometimes also block off upper cabinet corners. Is there some device that would install into that upper dead corner that could be pulled down for additional storage (I’m thinking of something that would be used for secretly storing valuables)? You have featured devices for the base corner that rise up on a mechanical lift and reveal extra storage but there must be something that pulls down for the upper corner.
The blind corner in my kitchen wasn’t accessible and was fairly large as it went from the sink on the east wall to the stove on the north wall. It seemed like a waste of potential storage space in a house with very little storage. A kitchen remodel wasn’t an option, but through the north wall was the laundry room, so I opened up that wall to gain access to that blind corner. It gave me a great spot to store my rolling pet food containers.
I tried reading them all, but wow, you have a lot of fans. You show the option of using a base cabinet with less depth. I don’t know if they did away with this concept, but it doesn’t appear to be an option anymore. The only thing that is 18″ deep is the window seat cabinet. Or, is this a location issue. I’m in the southern US. I have one section of cabinets that are only 18″ deep. This is my first kitchen cabinet project and at this point I’m very frustrated. I don’t know what my options are. Do I get normal base cabinets and cut the depth down? I saw someone made a article of that, but it was the cabinets without the front plate. The cabinets with the front plate appear to have reinforced 45 degree braces in the back of the cabinet. Any ideas or articles you can point me to would be soooooo appreciated. Great article. I’m gonna see if you have anymore articles that might touch on my situation.
Just a suggestion that I have never heard anyone mention. Use the blind corner, attach the countertop to a popup set of shelves or have the countertop use a hinge to give access to something like a small deep freezer. Everyone, myself included, always thinks about accessing the corner cabinets from the front, why not from the top?
Sorry, I am not into kitchen planing right now and therefore the article is a little bit long to watch it in total. But what I have seen: you mention the blind corner and just use cabinets next to it. What I wanted to add, because I think you have not mentioned this: Besides better access, the total usable space is the same or better than using corner solutions. In a German forum somebody actually calculated the area of corner pullouts, carousel / lazy sue (I believe is the term in english?) and standard drawers (which can be bigger when using a blind corner) and the space – as I said – was same or better with the standard drawers. Of course this may differ in some settings, but usually the blind corner is the best option.
What’s on the other side of the wall? It would depend heavily on what type of room adjoins the kitchen, its layout, and assuming you are not dealing with a supporting wall, but the dead space configuration could provide a small storage space for an adjoining room. Storage for a bathroom or laundry room. A bedroom or small office space could be equipped with drawers.
Thank you. I have a spare room and I have about 100 or more books. needless to say I want to build in an L shaped bookcase with a magic corner and the window seat has to have the ability to fit my xl twin mattress and the botttom drawer has to be the extender to turn the twin into a double?? whatever size it is when you pull the second twin out. for when married couples come over to visit.
You should be able to adjust the countertop to close all those holes and join the diffent section into one joined countertop. Ofc this should be done as one of the last steps as this action results in the countertop becoming its own object, and not following the cabinets anymore. Once you get to know the pogram theres quite a few fun ways of designing – ex. you ca fill out the corner with a 80cm cabinet where half is blocked off in the corner, you can use a tall cabinet or a wall cabinet, you can make benches, bar areas and much more 😀
The plan for my kitchen is this. I have a peninsula separating my kitchen from an eating area. We have a blind cabinet with shelves and lots of crawling inside of it. My plan is to replace the corner with a regular cabinet that opens into the eating area. The non blind portion of the blind cabinet will be replaced a row of drawers. Easy access to all the space. Storage for the eating area. No more crawling into the cabinet.
Thanks for the article. Quick question Mark and I’m kind of confused about choosing the blind corner cabinet. home depot designed me a BBC42R blind base cabinet. But the actual length of this cabinet is only 39″ so the question is, if i am doing my design should i measure the actual size of the cabinet which is 39″ or use the 42″. also what i found on one of the brands says. “Please Note: This Cabinet Will Be 39″ in Actual Length & Requires 42.5″- 49″ of Space to Install” ? thanks
for a corner unit with a lazy susan, the arc of the susan will only fill about 75% of the cabinet. Also they tend to be two layers. A drawer bank will give you 100% access to the cabinet and much denser (3-4 drawers for example). You could quite quickly get more effective storage by blocking off a corner evne though it might feel counter intuitive. For me a lazy susan or pullout is still convenient for appliances and less used items where the volume of a deep blind corner may be of benefit.
We decided on a new build. I told the builder no L shape kitchens and no barn doors. The plan we picked included an L shape. To go around that I had them push out the exterior wall to create a corner wall. This also added a little storage alcove in the garage. The house before had an L shape and the lazy Susan and cabinets drove me nuts. Too much dead space.
We have a low window with 2 corners next to them in a galley kitchen. The apartment building is on a slant so the right corner will have a small sliver of space if we put a straight cabinet. How could we manage this? Maybe a seat storage that reaches up to the window sill and bring the cabinets to the wall with custom filler by the wall? Then we could add the pull-out extension to get full use of the cabinets.
I met with a kitchen planner at IKEA and they were so irked when I suggested this. They said it was so much lost space. We don’t use our lower carousel we put soups etc then never open cabinet again. I would like to make it corner drawers instead. How much space is actually lost?? He also said ikea won’t install it possibly like that a fake wall needs to be made.
Can i ask: with the blank corner piece as discussed in the 5minute mark, is it possible to gain entry into that area if you need to? Even if it means taking out the drawers, etc? I have a gas meter in my kitchen that i would love to get out of the kitchen cabinets and into dead space. However, I’d obviously like to gain entry if I absolutely need to.
It never occurred to me that it might be best to just waste the corner space in favor of more usable drawers. Our new kitchen will be large enough that I don’t need to worry about utilizing every nook and cranny. In our current house, I spent a small fortune on a really cool corner pop-out. While it’s super cool, and has the beautiful engineering, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really hold that much. A set of drawers would have been much more useful.
For the corner, with or without a pipe conduit in the corner, consider a less-deep bank of drawers on the 45°, and narrower width (eg 300mm/1′). I almost went with that, but came up with a different solution of partially obscuring 300mm of base cabinet (for sink) into the corner (so ‘half a blind’). Currently have a traditional corner with a Susan which I think is inefficient overall.
I personally really like the blocked off corners as no other option will work in our tiny kitchen . My question to people who used this option, does Ikea provide you with some sort of brackets to go on the wall to support the countertop or do you build your own brackets out of wood and attach them to the walls since there is no cabinet to support it on the back at the corner?
I have an existing corner cabinet and I started looking at adding a Lazy Susan but when I did the math I wasn’t going to gain any shelf space. This was because the the Lazy Susan is round so you loose space normally store stuff in in the non corner portion as well as in the corner portion for the corners and and clearances that you need to allow the shelf to rotate and the space in the corner that add is limited for the same reason.
HELP!! I have an incredibly difficult corner pantry (upper and lower)with shelves in my kitchen. The biggest problem is they are double wide cabinets with single wide access door, making them very deep, very dark, and difficult to access, (I am only 5’2, widowed). Do you have any ideas or examples of how to correct this problem? My condo is very small and the storage space is lacking in every room.
I have had the base cabinet style with the pullout and the carousel AND unfortunately, an ordinary “blind” cabinet where the back of the cabinet is inaccessible unless you send a toddler in on a spelunking expedition. My mom had a “corner filler” that was accessed from the family room that was a liquor cabinet.
I normally use the corner to put the close-in boiler system (quooker or other brand), the water filtration system, or if necessary the carbon filters for recirculation ventilation. You otherwise just waste space under the sink or under your cooktop for this. Not an option in every kitchen, but in most, with careful planning.
IKEA used to sell a small triangle piece you add to the bottom of the corner cabinet, and then they have wide swing hinges so you can attach a single door to the corner cabinet instead of 2 bifold doors. It’s easier than trying to do that yourself with fillers and dead space. Not sure if it’s no longer sold or its just not in the kitchen planner.
I think I’m the only person who hates lazy susans and those pull out things. Also pull-out drawers. Why? Because they waste space. I’d rather use an acrylic or even wooden bin with a handle that I can pull out. As for pots and pans, I’d rather store them on the side. That way it would be easier to take out just the pot or pan you need, instead of taking out three to get to the one you need. Under my cooktop are two pull-outs for pots and pans. If I had shelves instead, I could have three rows and it would be easier to store cookware.
My corners are blocked off. It’s really annoying because we could use the space. We have a decent size kitchen, it’s a U shaped with an island but both the uppers and lower corners and they waste the space. We could use the space. When we redo the kitchen I like the blind cabinet option, that would work with the layout well and utilize the space better.
I am sketching my kitchen build out now. I will put in the corner a whole appliance closet. We have a cleaning closet at one end, and i put in metal stand-alone shelving for now to store my insta pot,air fryer, etc, and love it. So,when i build out my new cabinets, that’s what i plan to do in the corner .
Theres another Solution i had to use in a Layout for a client recently. But its very ‘russian’ (as we say here): Instead of using the IKEA Corner rectangle cabinet – we had to take a 80cm wide cabinet with two 40cm doors and put it in the croner with some leftover space to the wall. One of the doors gets screwed in place and just functions as a “front cover” for the corner. Adjacent to that we put the next drawer cabinet with the standard spacer in our case about 20cm into the blocked door…..
Seems like a lot of different ways to waste the available corner space. That’s OK in a generously sized kitchen (maybe) – but not much of an option for a constrained space where you need every inch of storage. No mention of pivot /slide units for corners that are much more efficient users of space. Aftermarket solutions exist that could work within IKEA cabinets
Why does these companies call it a lazy Susan? Why not call it what it is, a turn style? Kind of an insult to women named Susan. I have angle cabinets for the upper cabinets. Too bad they don’t make angle cabinets for the lower cabinets. I like the corner with the turn styles in them great for small appliances like toasters, can openers, hot air popcorn poppers, blenders, etc.