Build a Larder Cupboard With IKEA METOD Frames in 9 Steps for 30% More Storage

Why the frame depth pays off

A METOD high cabinet frame in the 60cm depth class gives an internal usable depth of about 56cm once you subtract the 18mm back panel and rail allowances. A freestanding larder unit of the same 60cm external footprint typically loses 8cm to 12cm to its own side panels, plinth recess, and the air gap you leave behind it. That difference is where the 30% storage gain comes from, and it only holds if the frame is fixed flush to the wall with no standoff.

The second variable is height. METOD high frames come at 200cm and 220cm. A 220cm frame on a 220cm wall leaves nothing above it to gather dust and nothing below it to lose to a deep skirting plinth if you cut the plinth to a 8cm clearance instead of the default 14.6cm METOD leg height. Two frames side by side at 220cm, each 60cm wide, hold more than most reach-in pantries occupying twice the floor area. The constraint is rarely the cabinet. It is whether the wall behind it can take the load.

Step 1 to 3: marking, levelling, and the suspension rail

Start by finding the studs or noggins with a multi-detector, not a magnet, because a magnet only finds the screw heads and misses the timber between them. Mark each stud centre with a pencil line carried up the full 220cm. On a masonry wall, you skip studs entirely and work to the METOD suspension rail spacing instead.

The METOD system hangs the frame from a horizontal suspension rail screwed to the wall near the top. Set this rail dead level with a 1200mm spirit level or a laser line; a 2mm tilt over 60cm becomes a visible 7mm lean at the top of a 220cm frame, and the doors will swing open or shut on their own. Fix the rail every 30cm to 40cm along its length. Into timber studs, a 5x60mm wood screw is sufficient. Into solid brick or block, this is where the wall anchors matter: a 8mm nylon plug rated for the substrate, or a frame fixing for hollow block. Cheap expansion plugs in aerated concrete spin and pull straight back out under a loaded larder.

Steps 1 to 3 are the measure, level, rail. Get the rail wrong and every later step inherits the error.

The fixings argument nobody enjoys

Wall anchors are the single component most people under-spec, and a loaded larder is unforgiving about it. A 220cm frame filled with tinned goods and a stone mortar bowl can hold 60kg to 90kg of contents. That load tries to peel the top of the cabinet off the wall, a pull-out force on the upper fixings, while the lower fixings take shear.

In a brick wall, an 8mm sleeve anchor or a quality nylon plug with a 5x70mm screw into the brick body, not the perp joint, gives a pull-out resistance comfortably above what a single fixing will ever see in this application. The failure mode is almost always the mortar joint, so aim the drill at the brick face and avoid the lines between bricks. In plasterboard with no stud behind, no plasterboard-only anchor is honest about a larder load. The toggle types quoted at 30kg or 40kg are quoting a static pull on a fresh board, not a board that has cycled humidity and door-slamming for three years. Hit a stud, add a noggin between studs, or fix a timber batten across two studs and screw the rail to the batten.

The same logic governs a floating shelf brick fixing inside the larder if you add one above the top frame. Resin-anchored studs into the brick body carry a cantilevered shelf load that plug-and-screw will not, because the shelf multiplies the leverage on the top fixing. People who skip this learn it when a 12kg row of jars arrives on a shelf rated, optimistically, for half that.

Step 4 to 6: building and hanging the carcass

Assemble the frame flat on the floor before it goes near the wall. METOD carcasses use cam-lock fittings and wooden dowels; the 2024 revision tolerances are tight, so a rubber mallet and a square help more than force. Check the diagonal measurements corner to corner before you lock the cams. If the two diagonals differ by more than 2mm or 3mm, the frame is racked and the doors will never sit even. Adjust before tightening, because once the cams bite you are drilling them out to start over.

Hang the assembled frame onto the suspension rail using the two integrated brackets at the top rear. These brackets have a screw that adjusts the frame in and out from the wall and a second that adjusts height. Use the in-out screw to pull the cabinet tight against the wall and the level to confirm the face is plumb in both planes. A frame that is plumb side to side but tilting forward will let doors drift open.

With two frames side by side, clamp the adjacent carcasses together at front and back before driving the connecting screws. Pre-drill 2.5mm pilots so the connector screws do not split the chipboard edge. Two 220cm frames connected as a pair are far stiffer than either alone, which is what keeps a tall larder from racking when you lean a full door open. The bottom of each frame still needs securing: a screw through the lower rear rail into a stud or a plugged masonry fixing stops the base kicking out.

Steps 4 to 6 take the longest of the nine, and skipping the diagonal check here is the error that surfaces three steps later as doors that will not align no matter how you turn the hinge cams.

Step 7 to 9: interior, doors, and the trim

Fit the internal fittings before the doors. METOD shelves sit on metal supports into the line-bored holes; the standard larder layout is five to six adjustable shelves plus a fixed mid shelf. If you are adding pull-out shelves or wire baskets, mount them now while you have clear access. A common spacing puts taller bottle and jar shelves at the bottom and shallower tin shelves above, because reaching over a tall front row to a low back tin is the daily annoyance that makes people abandon a deep pantry.

Hang the doors last. METOD soft-close hinges have three adjustment screws: side-to-side, depth, and height. Set the height first across all doors so the tops align, then close the side gaps to an even 3mm reveal. On a paired larder the centre gap between the two cabinets is where the eye lands, so set that one first and work outward.

Finish with the plinth and any cornice or filler strips. A scribed filler against an out-of-square wall hides the wedge gap that no amount of frame adjustment closes; chimney breasts and old plaster are rarely plumb. If the larder sits in a recess painted in a Farrow and Ball heritage palette, the cabinet face and the wall colour will read as one plane only if the filler is scribed tight, so cut it generous and plane back to the wall line.

A worked load check

Take the upper fixings on a single 220cm 60cm frame holding 80kg of contents centred about 25cm out from the wall. The tipping moment about the base is roughly 80kg times the 0.25m lever, a turning force the top fixings must resist over the frame height. Spread across four top fixings into brick body with 8mm anchors, each fixing sees a fraction of its rated pull-out. Spread across two cheap plasterboard plugs, each is already past its honest rating before you add the first door slam. The arithmetic is why the fixing section is longer than the door section.

What this build does not cover

The sequence above assumes a flat, dry, structurally sound wall. It says nothing about a larder built into a chimney recess where the masonry behind the plaster is rubble-filled and takes no reliable anchor, which is a genuinely harder fixing problem than any covered here. If the back wall sounds hollow and crumbling behind the plaster when you drill the first test hole, the question is no longer which screw to use, but whether the frame should be carried on a floor-fixed timber subframe instead of hung from the wall at all.