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IKEA’s KALLAX shelves are versatile storage solutions that you can use in just about any room of your house. However, they sometimes have a bit too much depth relative to the items you’re putting on them, which can make it tricky to maximize storage space in your small home. If you’re using your KALLAX shelves for video games, for example, you’ve probably noticed that there’s enough space behind your games for a whole extra row of discs. However, if you store your less frequently played titles back there, you might completely forget that they exist since you can’t really see them. Luckily, there’s a simple way to ensure that you’re both using your shelves to their fullest and displaying the width and breadth of your collection. All you need to do is put together a couple of inexpensive shelf risers.

To make shelf risers for video game storage, you’ll need a few Black Foam Boards from Dollar Tree, a craft knife, and a hot glue gun. If you have a light-colored shelf, you might prefer to work with Readi-Board White Foam Boards instead. Either way, the goal here is ultimately to create support stands that can prop up a back row of video games on each shelf. This will make it possible to fit more titles on a single shelf without hiding anything, and should help free up space elsewhere on your KALLAX unit that you can use for displaying items or keeping your board games neat and tidy.

To begin this project, remove everything from the shelves on which you want to add the risers. Then, you should measure the insides of these spaces. Once that’s done, you can begin cutting your foam boards with a craft knife. An X-ACTO Z-Series Precision Knife, for example, should work great. The first piece you create should have a width that matches the width of your video game cases, and a length that matches the width of your shelf. The second piece should generally be identical to the first; however, there’s one exception. If the height of the inside of your shelf minus the height of one game case is less than the width of one game case, you should use the smaller measurement for your second foam piece’s width. Once you’ve got both riser components in hand, join them together at a right angle with a generous amount of hot glue.

Next up, you’ll need to make foam board supports for your shelf risers. Each riser needs three supports. The dimensions of these supports should match the widths of your two foam pieces; with the standard IKEA KALLAX shelves, they’ll likely be square. Hot glue in the supports between the two riser boards, and wait for everything to dry. Then, put your riser in the back of your shelf, with the shorter side, if there is one, standing up vertically. All that’s left now is to fill your shelves with games.

The foam board construction of this project makes it an affordable, easy-to-assemble addition to your video game shelf. However, there are a couple of ways to upgrade it to improve its functional and aesthetic quality. If the rough edges of the board are making your riser look a bit unkempt whenever one of your games is off the shelf, you could try painting them with some black or other color-matching acrylics to help them blend in. Looking for a way to strengthen the durability of your risers instead? You could try attaching an extra foam board panel to the back side of the risers, so that the weight of whatever you’re going to put on them ends up being more evenly distributed.

For even more stability, you could try making this project with spare wood boards instead of foam. If you’re going to do this, you should use wood glue or wood screws in place of hot glue. Don’t forget to account for the width of the board when calculating the riser’s height. By using wood, your risers should be strong enough to hold up a collection of books. This DIY could also be handy for keeping your shelves organized if you have a large collection of DVDs. If you’re looking for a way to make the most of your KALLAX shelves without risers, make sure to read up on the most foolproof ways to organize deep shelves around your home.