Sooner or later, almost every collection ends up in a KALLAX, a BILLY or a BLÅLIDEN. They are cheap, they are everywhere, and they are almost the right shape — which is exactly why the miniature display IKEA hack has become its own small genre.
Why these units nearly work
A cube or a bookcase shelf gives you a clean rectangular volume with a fixed height. The problem is that models on a flat shelf waste almost all of that volume: you get one row at the front, a lot of dead air above, and everything behind the front rank disappears. Tiering the models is what turns a shelf into a display.
Plan the hack before you commit
The cabinet and shelf layout planner takes your shelf width, depth and height and lets you try arrangements before you move a single model. You get a capacity estimate per shelf and can compare layouts side by side. It works just as well with a purpose-built glass cabinet as it does with a flat-pack cube.
The measurement that ruins these builds
Cube height, not width, is what catches people out. A cube opening is generous side to side and tight top to bottom, and a tiered stand adds height under every model. Put a tall centrepiece on the back tier and it will foul the shelf above. Run the numbers through the scale and shelf-clearance calculator before you buy anything — it adds model height, base and stand together and checks the total against your actual gap.
Then work out what goes in it
Once you know the usable space, the display stand finder tells you which stands fit and how many you need. If you are not certain of your base sizes yet, the base size checker settles that in a minute.
Everything here is free to use with no account. Browse the rest on the tools page.
WarSplay® is a brand of Blubbercove Ltd, an independent UK manufacturer. We are not affiliated with, authorised by, endorsed by or licensed by Inter IKEA Systems B.V. Product names are used purely to describe compatibility.