Grundtal Rail Ikea Hack

Oct 10, 2016 | 8 comments

The Grundtal kitchen organiser series is one of Ikea’s classic lines, a simple, modern and practical storage system with a ‘professional kitchen’ look. We’ve already got a couple of rails for pots and pans – see blurry background in photo above – and I wanted to add another to a bit of wall next to our oven. Unfortunately the shortest Grundtal rail that Ikea sell (40cm) was about 15cm too long for wall I had in mind. I needed a modified extra-short version. So here is my Grundtal Rail Ikea Hack, a way of customising the length of a Grundtal rail.

Materials:
1 x 40cm Grundtal Rail
1 x Bottle of wine (with cork)
1 x 5mm Rawlplug
1 x Screw

Tools:
Junior Hacksaw
Stanley Knife
Drill
Screwdriver

1. Use junior hacksaw to cut the rail down to the required length – This inevitably involves hacking off one of the threaded nuts used to secure the rail to a bracket (See pic below).

2) Remove cork from your bottle of wine, drill a 6mm hole down the middle, and insert a 5mm rawlplug.

3) Using a knife, trim the cork evenly around the sides until you can squeeze it into the end of the rail.

4) Attach rail to the bracket using a 30mm screw into the ‘corked’ end of the rail. Below are photos of both ends of the finished rail.

5) Mount your extra-short Grundtal rail on the wall.

Despite it’s simplicity, I’m rather pleased with this Grundtal Rail Ikea hack. Not only has it elegantly solved my middle-class problem of where to store basil, but as an added bonus, the by-product is a full bottle of red wine. Cheers.

8 Comments

Emma on April 30, 2017 at 7:17 pm
Totally brilliant, thank you for sharing this on your lovely website, I was about to abandon my too-long Grundtal rails but this saved them (with an excuse to open a bottle of wine).
Reply
- Tom Baughan on May 3, 2017 at 7:51 am
  Thank you very much for the kind comment Emma. I hope your project went well.
  Reply
Amanda on April 5, 2018 at 5:10 pm
The metal piece that is inside the end of the rail (the threaded piece) comes out. No need for the cork and anchor. Just pop that piece out of the end and stick it back in the new cut end.
Reply
- Amanda on April 5, 2018 at 5:11 pm
  At most it might night a little adhesive going back in to the new cut off section to keep it secure
  Reply
- Tom Baughan on April 20, 2018 at 8:28 am
  To be honest I didn’t realise this was a possibility, when I looked at it I couldn’t work out how to ‘pop-out’ the threaded piece. Was also quite keen to see whether the wine cork approach would work!
  Reply
Rachael on July 19, 2018 at 12:35 pm
Open the bevelled end with pliers. Cut off what you don’t need. Squirt penetrating oil down the tube and tap the fixing out with anything that’s long enough to reach from the open end.
Reply
Athol on May 10, 2020 at 2:51 pm
You are all brilliant, rushed ahead and mashed the thread resulting in a lastditch look on internet to see if there was help out there, found this site, praise be to the small genius
Reply
- Tom Baughan on May 21, 2020 at 1:28 pm
  Great – glad someone found it useful!
  Reply