How to Install Pot Racks

• Active Time: 1 hour
• Total Time: 1 hour
• Cost: $65 for pot racks and hooks
• Help Needed?: Nope! You can do this solo.
• Difficulty: Beginner

Hi friends! To continue on Installing Knife & Spice Racks about small storage projects that make a HUGE difference in your kitchen storage space, I’m going to talk about how to install pot racks.

Affiliate Disclosure: The links in this post are affiliate links, meaning, at no cost to you, I earn a small commission if you click the link and purchase the item.

Our Small Kitchen With No Storage Space

Steve and I love to cook. We just got married last fall, and our registry was filled with brand new pots and pans. (SIDE NOTE: if you need new pots and pans, we love our All Clad cookware! They’re pricey but super durable. You’ll have them for 20+ years. We’re on year 3 of them and have had zero issues).

Unfortunately, we didn’t have a great storage option. We had some pots in the old pot racks the previous owner had left, some in upper cabinets, and some in the basement. That meant for one meal, we could be going to four different places to get the pots and pans needed for the meal–not ideal. So, when I started to plan the kitchen renovation, planning where our pots and pans would live was an integral part of the layout.

I loved the idea of vertical storage, especially since we had this one blank wall space once I took down some of the old storage racks. As always, I spent hours on Pinterest researching options and found several pictures that I thought would work.

Supplies Needed

• Pot racks (I used these great pot racks from Ikea)
• Hooks to hang things with
• Drywall anchors if you cant install the pot racks into studs–Make sure to get ones rated for heavy weights!
• Ryobi impact driver
• Ryobi drill
• Tape measure
• Hammer

Once you’ve gathered everything, let’s dive into how to install pot racks!

Step 1: Pick your Pot Racks & Plan your Wall Space Out

After we settled on the wall behind our back door as the wall space for the pots, we had to figure out how many pots and pans we needed to hang up and how many pot racks we could fit on that wall. We thought we’d be able to fit 5 pot racks on the wall, which would allow us to hang all our pots and pans and have 1-2 racks for lids. We decided to start installing the top one first, hanging the pots that we wanted on that rack, and then hanging the next one until we got as closet to the ground as we wanted to be.

Step 2: Mark Where your Screws Should Go for the First Rack

We decided to hang the racks about 6 inches from the ceiling, so they wouldn’t seem too close to the ceiling. So we marked where our holes needed to be, using a tape measure to mark the first hole 6 inches from the ceiling on one side and then 6 inches on the other side, to make sure we’d be hanging the pot racks level. (If you are comfortable with a laser level, you can also use that here–ours was out of batteries when we installed these).

Step 3: Drill your Holes for your Screws

Using your drill, drill holes for each drywall anchor for the first pot rack. Then, hammer in each anchor. Next, use your impact driver to screw your screws into the drywall anchors.

Step 4: Hang Pot Racks

Hang each bracket on your drywall anchors. Then, thread the rack through the brackets. Before tightening the teeny tiny screws on the bottom of the bracket, called set screws, that hold the racks in place, make sure your rack is level (by either measuring each side from the ceiling or by using a level). After that, you can tighten those tiny screws in each bracket so the rack doesn’t move, and push the end caps on the racks.

Step 5: Repeat Steps 2-4 for Each Rack Until Done

We decided to hang out pots as we installed each rack, so we could best pick out where we wanted the next rack to be. So, you’ll see below, Steve is measuring for the second rack with our first rack of pans in place. We wanted to make sure we had enough working room for each rack and that it didn’t look too cluttered.

Step 6: Hang up All your Pretty Pots and Pans

And of course, the best step ever: hanging up all your pots and pans. You can definitely fit more pots and pans on each rack, but I decided to keep it just 2-3 per rack, so they each had their own space, and they looked clean.

I was worried that we would have to find another solution for our pot lids, since we were only able to fit three racks. But, as you can see in the picture below, the lids fit perfectly on the top of the racks. So, now each rack holds its pots with their matching lids!

That’s It!

You made it through How to Install Pot Racks, and you’ve had loads of storage to your small kitchen!

This was definitely one of my favorite kitchen projects because of how easy it was and how big of a difference it’s made in our every day lives. I hope this guide inspires you to try new storage solutions in your small kitchen!

Liked this post? We have lots of other Kitchen Storage Projects, like How to Install Spice Racks, How to Create a Family Command Center, How to Install Kitchen Shelves, and so many more!

~Lauren