This $180 IKEA Kitchen Cart Is the Most Useful Thing in My Rental Apartment – This Is Why I’d Buy Another Immediately

Circumstances in the New York housing market are rarely serendipitous – not when you’re paying more than most people’s mortgages for an apartment where your living room is also your bedroom, and basic comforts like consistent heat feel like a pipe dream. But when I moved into my studio five years ago, something unexpectedly fortuitous was already waiting in my kitchen: the IKEA FÖRHÖJA Kitchen Cart.

It belonged to the previous tenant (I assume they didn’t feel like hauling a solid birch cart down three flights of narrow, pre-war stairs). Given my kitchen’s near-total lack of counter space, I immediately understood why they’d bought it. The cart effectively doubled my usable worktop, while adding two drawers and a two-tier shelf’s worth of kitchen storage. I kept it without hesitation.

I’m glad I did. What I didn’t anticipate was just how indispensable it would become. I added woven baskets to the lower shelves for food, napkins, placemats, and kitchen odds and ends. The left drawer holds Ziploc bags and foil; the right is a dedicated junk drawer, which we’ll politely not unpack.

Structurally, the FÖRHÖJA is more capable than it looks. The butcher-block top holds up to real use – chopping, heat-heavy appliances like toaster ovens and air fryers – the same way a fixed countertop would, which isn’t a given with movable islands.

The striped skirt came later (an Etsy find) and wasn’t totally necessary. I genuinely admired the openness of the exposed shelves. But since organization isn’t exactly my forte, the skirt offered a little grace, disguising my less-than-editorial snack situation on busy weeks. It also made this wildly ubiquitous IKEA room idea feel, finally, like mine.

A quick scan of the reviews confirms what I’ve learned firsthand: that this IKEA cart is absolutely iconic. Yes, it’s excellent in kitchens. But thanks to its proportions – and the fact that it rolls – it works just as well as a storage trolley elsewhere in the home.

‘Bought this product to increase the amount of workspace in our small kitchen,’ one reviewer writes. ‘This movable island was the perfect fit. The size is perfect, the height is perfect. A plus is that we can easily move it from the kitchen to the dining area if we want to use it to serve food.’

I’ve seen it repurposed in guest bedrooms, too – towels and blankets below, books in the drawers, water and snacks on top. Its Scandi look is neutral enough to blend in nearly anywhere you need it to. Heck, I could even imagine it in a garage.

Which is all to say: if I hadn’t inherited the FÖRHÖJA by chance, I almost certainly would have bought it anyway. Five years on, it's sincerely the most streamlined, space-saving kitchen cart I’ve ever encountered – one I still rely on daily, and still enjoy looking at.

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