I think the safety issue is that with this style, the contents are right at a child's eye-level. They'd be much more tempted to play with this draw. I think you'd have to invest in a good child lock. With a regular drawer style, you could have it a slim profile be the top drawer. Less likely for them to easily see the contents. They might not even know what's kept in there. You could even have push release instead of a handle so it appears there is not even a drawer there. Same could be done for the vertical unit. I'd still want to use a child lock though, if I had a kid around. The knife blocks vary in price A LOT. Just saw 7 pce sets online for $69 on sale, $199, $274, $549... I would hope they include knives! You might be better off grabbing a bunch of the RETRATT blocks from Ikea.

The difference between custom built and flat pack, Bunnings etc have a whole lot of additional choices that you can add. We wanted to add drawers to a Bunnings 900 pantry, you can buy the drawers and tracks but you needed to change the hinges so that the doors opened wider to allow the draws to slide, these hinges x 8 are very expensive. We went back to our wardrobe etc cabinet maker who made the draws and installed them to work with the current hinges, much cheaper. Check with a Danish kitchen company, they do them. cheers

Have you thought about wallpaper? feature walls? Our wallpaper peals on and peals off with easy. You can do it yourself without fuss or extra cost. We also custom make our designs to your chose of colour and size for free.

Would love to see the IKEA hack you've seen previously? A budget conscious way to replicate something like this would be to purchase two matching chest of drawers, pair them back to back, and then having a large single custom piece of bevelled glass that sits on top of them (maybe with some felt underneath so it doesn't slide around) then you could further customise by changing handles, pop an ottoman on the side (if the pic is what you're replicating) and you'll pretty much be there. It's when you start wanting a full integrated look (like the picture, showing custom bench and even skirting at the base) where it starts to add up - but anyone who does kitchens and joinery could knock this up, I'd recommend drawing up your ideal dimensions and start comparing quotes!