Hi Kathe,
I am going full blown IKEA so can't tell you about retrofitting. I have tried the pullouts at IKEA itself and I would do everything possible to go with the pullout instead of the door. It is easier to use one motion and you access the back simply. I have a narrower tall cab with no pullouts in my current kitchen and can't wait to supersize it, lol.
I also am getting the cleaning pullout one, which may work for yours as well. It is an interior pullout and not separate shelves. I'll finally have a designated broom spot (this is my 2nd house without broom storage anywhere the near eating area, ugh).
The only issue may be knob/pull placement. If your cab already has that drilled, would it be in the same place as you'd want for a pullout?

You can easily buy the 135 degree hinges at Ikea for the wider opening doors to accomodate the pullout shelves.

I actually prefer the door and separate pullout shelves setup. You can pull out one shelf at a time and really fully access it. With the pullout pantry, every time you open the door you have one upper shelf that is in the way. They are really cool but not as easy to use IMO.

good luck!

My pantry with frameless cabs has special hinges. I know this because the installer used normal hinges initially and I the rollout shelves wouldn't open because they didn't clear the hinges. I think the hinges are called zero clearance and when the door is open, the doors are clear of the frame. This is not true of my other cabs with normal hinges. My rollouts go all the way to the sides of my cabs. The hinges are large and the food in the rollouts has to clear the hinges, though. My cabs are custom and all hinges, rollouts, etc are Blum, which I think is what Ikea uses.

If I were you, I would use whatever option makes the most usable space. 15" isn't wide, and the rollouts are going to eat up some of that. If the full pullout door style gives you more space and access to the space, that's what I would do.

Here's a pic of mine, but it's not close up. Maybe you can see how the rollouts take up the full width of the cabinet and how the open doors are clear of the frame? I can take a close-up pic if you need, but I won't be able to get to that until tonight.

Good luck!

{{!gwi}}

Dh put our IKEA cabinets together for our laundry room. I believe the hinges are specific to the IKEA doors which have indentations for the hinges to snap into (no screws.) I think you'd have a hard time using an IKEA hinge on a non-IKEA door (unless someone was able to rout out the specific spots.) We used wider opening hinges on cabinets with pullouts. I'm linking to IKEA hinges below. The last one opens wider than the 2 sets just before it.

Ditto what scrappy25 says about separate pull outs vs one big pull out.

My advice is to really think about the cabinets objectively rather than being swayed by something that seems cool.

We have 2 tall IKEA cabinets in our laundry room. Both are 15 in. wide and 24 in. deep. I was sure I wanted the regular pull out and the cleaning pull until it came time to actually purchase them. Then when I thought about the advantages/disadvantages I totally changed my mind.

For the storage cabinet I realized I wanted the full front on view that the door and individual pull outs provided. I didn't want to have a big panel in my face as I pulled open the shelves. I wanted to be able to place the shelves where I decided rather than having some predetermined. I didn't want to have to step to the side to view the contents. I didn't want to have to pull out something weighty to access one item.

As far as the cleaning cabinet went I realized that grabbing items out of it was easy without the pull out. I preferred storing our vacuum on the sturdy floor instead of a pull out shelf. We ended up leaving the cabinet empty and then we mounted a vacuum hose holder on one side of the cabinet and a small pull out on the other side for cleaning supplies and vacuum parts. I'm very happy with it--and again, I'm glad I don't have a large pull out panel I have to work around. I prefer configuring cabinets myself than having a less flexible set up.

When deciding on the side to put the hinges, if you go with the door, make sure the fridge won't block your ability to open the door wide enough for the pull outs.

Here is a link that might be useful: hinges

Thanks for the advice. I think I'm going to go with the zero clearance or 135 degree hinges and have individual roll outs. It does sound easier to use than the full door.

I don't mind losing a bit of space side to side. Last night I filled the pantry with food to give it a go. With the exception of cans, I brought everything to the first half of the shelves to be able to see and reach them. That is more space lost than for the rollouts.

Although it's my "official" pantry, it's not the only place for food storage. I will also have a 30" by 12" deep storage cabinet and a bank of 4 drawers below my secondary oven.

zelmar, thanks. We must have been posting around the same time. I think you're right about having the panel in your face. Right now the doors swing opposite the fridge. They'll probably stay that way.

I have a set of IKEA hinges laying around with the tension snap. I'll test them out to see if they fit before buying the new hinges.

Thanks for the hinges link. I mistyped earlier, they're actually 153 degrees.