Modified STUK storage to fit under a SÖDERHAMN Ikea couch

With the pandemic, I've been spending a lot more time in my house. One of the things I've been watching to entertain myself is the tiny house videos on youtube. While I don't think I would want to live in such a small space, it has gotten me thinking about the space I do live in, and how to make it better suited to me and less cluttered. And, of course, it's gotten me thinking about storage.

In my home office I have an ikea SÖDERHAMN couch.

And I couldn't help notice that there is a decent amount of space under it that I could use for storage. Especially of the things I don't use very often. But with a height of just 5.5 inches there isn't many options I could find.

At Ikea, the salesperson did say that the STUK storage would work. I should have doubled checked, but I was tired and just bought them.

Unfortunately, it's too tall. But having already gotten it, I decided to look into modifying it to fit. My first hint came from the assembly itself.

I realised I could cut these to shorten it. It turns out to be easy to do with i sharp knife. Cut the top down the grove. Then bend it backwards and slice the knife between to fully separate it.

Now the only thing left to do is the 2 panels that are sewn into the walls of the box. For this I just cut them out, but I found it work better to cut a bit away form the edge so there is a little flap to hold it in when you replace it. 

Then just reassemble and it slides nicely under the couch.

Aesthetics

I think the edges could be nicer, also more permanent.  They sometimes slide out depend on how I'm holding it, but since it's mainly out of sight, this isn't something I'm worried about or planning on fixing.  Likewise, the cuts to the fabric could have been cleaner, or repaired. but since no one ever see this, I'm not bothered.