Kitchen storage is one of those domains where generic organizers are almost always okay and almost never actually right. This project came out of exactly that frustration. The 20 cm IKEA apothecary pull-out has useful vertical space and useful width, but off-the-shelf organizers rarely make proper use of it.
The actual storage problem
The annoying part is not that the cabinet is small. The annoying part is that the usable space tends to be reduced to the narrow bottom footprint even though the pull-out frame clearly offers more width and more potential.
That is why these inserts are built around the cabinet geometry rather than around a generic organizer size. The idea was to use the full width of the drawer and make the contents easier to access at the same time.
Why modularity matters here
Spices are rarely the only thing that ends up in a cabinet like this. Mills, jars, sprayers, oils, and odd-size kitchen items all compete for the same area. A fixed divider solution would have been too rigid almost immediately.
The modular approach makes much more sense because it allows different insert types to be combined. That turns the whole setup into a configurable system instead of a single predefined organizer.
The practical side of fitting it into IKEA furniture
Furniture projects are interesting because they are rarely only about the printed object itself. They are about how that object interacts with an existing product and its compromises.
In this case, part of the setup requires removing the rods that expand the pull-out frame. That is exactly the kind of real-world detail that matters in documentation. The value of the project is not only that the insert fits in theory, but that the article explains the actual conditions around using it.
Why this project is worth sharing
I like this one because it is not trying to be universal. It is intentionally designed for a very specific IKEA cabinet and becomes useful precisely because it respects that geometry.
That is a recurring theme in good 3D printing: the part becomes better the moment it stops pretending to be generic.