In a very small room, with a high ceiling, I created clothes space by reusing old KALLAX units and an old IKEA kitchen rail (BYGEL).

This cost me only £15 for two new wardrobe rails. I only used basic tools of spirit level, electric drill (for wall holes etc.), battery powered screwdriver and a very small amount of glue I already had.

I had a limited budget as I had to refurbish a large flat for rental.

This is in a rental property and I knew the room was to be used for either an office or a bedroom for children.

The 2 units are separated by wardrobe hanging rails bought from a DIY store.

It was vital to ensure both the top and bottom units were attached strongly to the wall.

Related: Custom KALLAX closet for twin boys

I then made sure bottom unit could never move by screwing into the floorboards.

I then attached the two wardrobe rails to the front of each unit and I did not need to cut metal rails but used the full length as the height between each unit.

I then screwed and glued an IKEA old kitchen rail underneath the top unit to use as a hanging rail for clothes. This rail had to be strongly glued as the weight of clothes could tear screws from the KALLAX unit. I used Gorilla glue brand.

The unit created clothes space in a very small room and has been used by various tenants for over 4 years and has held both children and adult clothing.

~ by Judith Faulkner

I had old IKEA GRUNDTAL shelves lying around and I wanted a glass shelving unit for my modem and plants. It took me two evenings to complete and the cost came up to around $80. Looking back, I would have ordered the glass clamps from China for lower cost.

I like how simple it looks. Minimalistic, with no support beams needed. It looks modern and slick and I was able to choose my own shelf spacing based on my needs. The most important thing about this hack is to maintain low center of mass for stability.

IKEA items used:

• 2x EKBY JÄRPEN wall shelf, 79 x 19 cm
• 4x GRUNDTAL glass shelf, 79 x 19 cm

Other materials and tools:

• 16 x Stainless steel glass clamps
• 4 x Furniture felt pad
• Wood or particle board screws

Hack instructions for glass shelving unit:

The EKBY are used as side walls. Note that the side walls should be mirror images of each other. Attach furniture pads.

Mark two crosses per shelf on each EKBY shelf.

For stability, use at least three glass shelves. The shelf unit is quite wobbly with only two shelves. Try to avoid having a high center of mass.

Fasten glass clamps for the uppermost and the lowermost shelves and tightly secure glass shelves, with the unit placed on its back. This way the glass shelves will self-align to the floor level.

Lift the unit, fasten the remaining glass clamps and glass shelves.

Affix the felt pads to the bottom of the EKBY shelves.

~ by Leon Mintz

I decided to hack this item because I live in a small apartment and wanted to have a space for my cat. My cat corner is an easy way to store all of his things without taking up a lot of room.

My favorite thing about this hack is that the litter is concealed. It helps mask the smell and isn’t all that noticeable. You can also make it unique to your pet — which I think is really great.

IKEA items used:

• KALLAX Shelf Unit
• DRONA Box
• LURVIG Cat House
• LURVIG Place Mat For Food Bowl
• LURVIG Cat Toy
• KALLAX Insert With Door

Other materials and tools:

• Scissors

Hack instructions for cozy cat corner:

1. Buy KALLAX shelf unit as well as the KALLAX insert with door.

2. If you are interested in other accessories IKEA now has a pet line. This is where I bought the cat house, cat toy, and placemat for the food bowl.

3. I followed the directions as normal in assembling the KALLAX shelving unit. The only step I skipped was leaving out one of the dividers so that the shelf has two rows at the top and one row at the bottom.

4. Once the shelf was completed I followed the instructions to insert the door. I used scissors to cut off one of the panels, that way the cat could access the litter box. It could also be effective to cut a hole into the panel rather than cut it off, but I wanted to have enough space to change and clean litter.
* I didn’t do this step but I imagine it would be helpful to reinforce the door by gluing the back panel to the shelf.

5. After that, I put all of the accessories Into the shelf. It is big enough to store his food, litter, and toys. I also placed a carpet in the bottom part to avoid the mess from the litter.

The price for my cat corner was also very affordable.

• KALLAX shelf unit: $38.99
• DRONA box: $3.99
• LURVIG cat house: $5.99
• KALLAX insert with door: $17.99
• LURVIG cat toy: $2.99
• LURVIG placemat: $.99

Overall I only spent about $70.00. This was a good price considering the ready-made cat furniture I was researching cost over $100.00. The only additional items I bought were the blanket for the cat bed as well as the carpet and mat for the cat litter.

The hardest part about this hack is inserting the door. It doesn’t seem to screw into the unit that well. I would add some extra reinforcement if it seems to be coming loose.

~ by Samantha Webster

I’ve recently taken up writing again, but I needed a nice quiet place to do that – and a place that makes me feel peaceful and happy. We decided to fit out a spare junk room into a writing room, a functional working space.

First, we painted it a lovely pale blue and then decided to make a monster desk out of METOD kitchen cabinets. It was put together over a few weekends – but really probably you should allow two solid days to do this properly (not counting the work to glue up the pinboard).

Supplies for the Monster Desk

• (1) BARKABODA worktop (240cm)
• (4) HERRESTAD doors in 60cm size
• (2) HAGGERBY white finished high gloss end panels
• (1) 60x60CM METOD base cabinet
• (2) narrow MAXIMERA drawers
• (3) medium MAXIMERA drawers
• (4-5) pieces of PASSARP felt to line the drawers
• (4) push openers
• (1) YPPERLIG lamp (with atomizer sitting on the base)
• (1) Pantry cupboard 60cm w x 200cm high (cut down tow 180cm)
• (4) Sets of Hinges
• Some L brackets
• (8) handmade 120mm 3-rod hairpin legs in stainless steel
• (3) BESTÅ boxes in felt (larger size)
• (8) VARIERA boxes for upper storage areas / shelves in the pantry cupboard
• A bunch of cheap Kmart clear drawer organisers

Directions for the Writing Room Desk

Assemble the base cabinet 60cm square.

Prepare to do the same with the 200cm high cabinet, but cut it down (mod it) to 180 cm. We wanted all the HERRESTAD doors to be the same pattern and size.

Add the HERRESTAD doors / hinges.

We had hairpin legs made at 120mm high – so with the 600mm cabinet, and the 30mm BARKABODO worktop the finished desk height was 750mm which is perfect for me. Fix on the legs.

Stand up both cabinets and place them where you wish them to be.

Fix back the pantry cabinet to the wall to make sure it can’t tip.

Fix the BARKABODA on top of the lower cabinet and to the side of the pantry cabinet (cutting it shorter to fit the length of the room). Fix L brackets to the wall and the pantry cabinet to hold on the worktop. Now it is all locked together!

Put the finished HAGGERBY panels on the underside of the desk (one on the 60cm sq. cabinet, and one on the lower part of the pantry cabinet).

Built and add in the drawers. Three drawers (2 narrow and 1 medium drawer were added to the 60cm sq. unit, and two medium drawers were added to the lower section of the pantry cupboard. The other two upper sections of the pantry above the desk are just shelves for general storage). I did add some BESTÅ boxes in dark grey felt, and then some of the white plastic boxes from the kitchen section (VARIERA), which fit in front of the BESTÅs.

Lined the drawers with the PASSARP felt which looks really nice – plus nothing rattles.

Found that the cheap Kmart clear drawer containers fit EXACTLY in the drawers in various sizes and configurations which are great for stationery – seriously, get yourself down there and clean them out at $2-$4 a pop they are brilliant.

Pay special attention to:

Ensuring the cabinets are level to the walls – your walls may not be square – ours aren’t – but if the cabinets are plumb and the walls aren’t it still looks wonky even if it’s technically correct.

Make sure your tabletop is level – your eye can pick a slight lean, really….

Make sure you know where you want to put your tech on the desk before you drill a hole for the power cords etc. And make sure when you do drill you do it square to the desktop – no leaning holes … or the power management doovers don’t fit.

Make sure you adjust the cabinet doors and hinges when you’re done – so the gaps are all even all the way around and the doors are level and square with the METOD carcasses.

Definitely do fix the cabinets back to the walls or they will tip over on you – the METOD system comes with rails for this purpose but depending on the size of your legs or the craziness of your walls you may want to use wooden blocks and screw through them to get the right distance and setback. The rail system may not work for your application.

When you cut off the top of the 200cm cabinet, save the 20cm bit (as you take it down to 180cm) and use it as a template to cut the right holes at the 180cm point on the cabinets. Works perfectly!

Adding a bit of life to the writing room …

To make the writing room a bit more useful and funky, we fixed two SKÅDIS pegboards to the side of the pantry cupboard. (Hence no more HAGGERBY high gloss panels for the top of the modified 200cm pantry cupboard). Added plants, and a pinboard.

Supplies to liven up the Desk

• (2) 56cm x 56cm SKÅDIS pegboard in brown
• (4) SKÅDIS grey containers
• (3) SKÅDIS grey shelves
• Various SKÅDIS hooks and elastic cords
• (1) Custom headphone holder for SKÅDIS – 3D printed by Husband (others on Thingaverse)
• (8) various fake IKEA succulent plants
• A few other fake plants from Adairs
• A few cheap kitchen containers from Kmart as pot plant holders
• Pinboard (FORBO) roll glued to 6mm MDF board

Directions to liven up the Desk

Fix the SKÅDIS boards to the side of the METOD pantry cupboard above the desk height (centre them on the panels. 12mm off the desk, 12mm between the panels and 12mm from the top of the cupboard).

Add the SKÅDIS accessories to the pegboard in the way that suits you.

Added a ton of fake plants from IKEA and put them in the SKÅDIS containers and on top of the pantry cabinet – which I use to fill the atomiser. Added a beaker from the kitchen section too – I use it to fill my atomiser.

Added the new LED YPPERLIG lamp – atomiser is sitting on its base.

Husband made me a custom headphone holder which fits the SKÅDIS pegboard – for those that 3D print you will find plenty of options online at Thingaverse.

I can also recommend Kmart again for a bunch of rose gold clips, paperclips, from their Stationery section at $1-$2 each (which I put in glass sauce dishes from Ikea). Also, the small kitchen jars with wooden lids at $3 a piece at Kmart are the perfect size to put in the IKEA plant pots – throw away the lids.

The backing board in the picture is FORBO self-healing pinboard (which comes in a roll) which we glued to 6mm mdf sheet (watch that glue it will really spin you around!) and taped to the wall behind the desk with “hold on forever” tape. You have to wait to do this part last to make sure the measurements will be perfect for the available wall – and did I mention nothing is square? Got the FORBO from Designer Pinboards Australia by the metre for relatively cheap – and there’s a bunch of lovely colours – they send you samples and couldn’t be more helpful.

Picked up a replica Eames high back office chair at Temple and Webster and added an existing armchair and sheepskin to the writing room.

The carpet is a cow rug named “Kevin” – also from IKEA.

We added a white 2m by 1m glass whiteboard to the wall as well from Officeworks for less than $250 (cheaper than the sticky whiteboard paper!) – highly recommend you use chalk or paint markers. Regular whiteboard markers hardly show up at all, even the good ones.

Other funky stationery that I did splash out on was from Milligram – which has lovely and addictive things – and you can afford a few special things when you did a pretty swish-o writing room / office fit out very economically!

~ by Carley and Aaron

I had been thinking about buying a harder mattress and bought one spontaneously one day. But I made a mistake in thinking that I had a full-sized bed, when in fact, my bed frame was a queen! This wasn’t a bad surprise as I didn’t like the bed frame I had, but it did push me towards a new bed. I could not find anything online that appealed to me so I decided that it would be easier to like something if I participated in making it myself.

IKEA items used:

• 3 KALLAX shelves
• Slats from an old IKEA bed
• Foam and mattress cover from an old IKEA mattress

Other materials and tools:

Tools:

• Drill
• Screwdriver
• Hammer
• Staple gun

Full-sized Bed frame:

• 4 pieces of poplar wood cut to size
• 4 bed rail fasteners
• 6 L shaped mounting braces
• Spax brand screws 1.25 and .75 inches long (size 8)
• Velcro tape

Headboard:

• 4 pieces of pine cut to size
• Foam
• Padding
• Fabric
• Nails
• Staplers

Hack instructions for KALLAX full-sized bed:

Bed frame

1. Build all three IKEA KALLAX shelves and place them in a U shape in the room where you want the bed to be.

2. Although using the official measurements of the KALLAX shelves the distance between the two side shelves was supposed to be approx. 63 cm, I found it was 68 cm. At Home Depot, I bought two pieces of poplar wood with a width of approx. 6 inches and a length of 68 cm.

I then connected the two pieces of poplar to the two bookshelves in the U facing each other using the 4 bed rail fasteners which I bought on Amazon. I didn’t connect them at the top but a few cm down. They were very easy to install. To install them into the poplar, I used a screwdriver to screw them directly in.

To screw the rail fastener into the KALLAX shelves, I had to drill holes first. I’m not sure how big the drill bit was since I eyed it. The screws I used for this step were 1.25 inches long.

3. Next, I used two L-shaped ½ inch mounting braces (with three holes for screws on each side) to connect each of the side KALLAX shelves to the shelf at the base of the U. To do this I drilled holes into the KALLAX shelves with the drill first, and then screwed in nails (.75 inches long) with a screwdriver by hand. With this step, all the shelves were connected to each other.

4. Next, I attached the 4 ¾ inch mounting braces to the shelves that made up the sides of the U (2 on each side). Then I took two more pieces of poplar that I got at Home Depot (about 3 inches wide and 147 cm long (the length of one KALLAX bookshelf) and screwed them into the poplar pieces attached earlier with the screwdriver by hand, and to the mounting braces in the previous step. The purpose of these pieces is to support the slats.

5. I used 14 slats from an old IKEA bed. I had to cut them down by a few cm to make them 68 cm each. I used Velcro tape under each slat.

DIY Headboard

1. I purchased 4 pieces of pine. Accidentally I didn’t purchase the correct length/width and worked with what I got, but ideally, the width should be the size of the bed, which in my case is 147+16.5+16.5=180 cm. The height of the wood is a subjective preference. I chose to go with 4 pieces of wood arranged in rectangular shape instead of one piece of plywood for a number of personal reasons (I don’t really lean into my headboard so it’s firmness doesn’t matter to me and a large piece of plywood was harder to transport from Home Depot than pieces of wood).

2. I used nails and a hammer to attach the pine together.

3. I cut the foam away from an old IKEA mattress. Since I didn’t want to use glue to adhere the foam to the pine, I used an old curtain to support the foam by wrapping the foam with it and stapling the curtain to the back of the pine. I also used these old curtains to cover the legs of the headboard. I used the mattress cover from the old IKEA mattress to create the back cover for the headboard (using the staple gun) and bottom supports you see in the picture.

4. I bought the upholstery fabric from Joann’s. The first time I bought it I didn’t buy enough since it shrunk when I washed it So I had to return to the store and buy more. The minimum you should buy is 2 yards of fabric for a headboard for a full-sized bed, but it’s probably better to buy a few extra inches just in case.

5. I used the staple gun to attach the fabric. It’s easy to correct mistakes when stapling by using a flat tipped screwdriver to remove the staple.

6. I realized that the sides of the top of the headboard were too “sharp” so I added additional padding to them.

Finished headboard

Right now, the headboard is not attached to either the wall or the bed because it doesn’t feel necessary, but the legs of the headboard can easily be screwed into the KALLAX shelves and the back of the headboard can be secured to the wall using Velcro tape.

Cost for my full-sized bed:

The KALLAX shelves were $46 each, the wood for the bed about $15, the wood for the headboard about $18, the fabric $40 (not counting the fact that I had to buy it twice), and the screws about $5. I reused some materials (slats, foam, mattress cover) and had access to the drill, screwdriver and stapler gun so these were free. So total was about $300 (if you include the 4 additional storage boxes from IKEA).

If you know what you’re doing and get all the materials together in one go, you can complete this project in a day. It took me 3 weeks though from the time I bought the KALLAX shelves in IKEA to the final screw!

What was the hardest part about this hack?

It took me a while to figure out how to connect the KALLAX shelves securely. Since I’d never done anything similar before my imagination in this regard was limited. The online tutorials I came across were inspiring but they didn’t give me a good understanding of the best way to connect the shelves. It wasn’t until a friend suggested I connect the two shelves on the sides of the U with wood to secure them, that I had my first “aha” moment.

A random Amazon search then introduced me to the concept of bed rail fasteners which I had not known existed! It also took me time to realize which mounting braces I needed since I’d never used them before and didn’t know where on the shelves to put them.

The last “aha” surprise came when I realized it would be best to return to Home Depot and get more poplar on which to lay the slats … which was a much better way than the original idea I had. Oh and don’t try drilling screws into poplar wood. You’ll end up inhaling screw (lead) dust! It’s a soft wood, screw them in with your hand!

Finished full-sized bed:

~ by Lena Shuster

We made a gerbil cage out of the IKEA DETOLF glass display cabinet. For $60 we got a huge cage (less if you get an old DETOLF off Craigslist or eBay) with a separator in the middle.

IKEA item:

• DETOLF cabinet

DETOLF | IKEA.com

Other materials to make the Gerbil Cage:

• Construction adhesive glue
• Pieces of U-Profile (optional)
• Clear Silicone
• Mesh wire (make sure that the spaces are not big)
• Pieces of wood
• L shaped flat metal brace
• Nails

Instructions to transform the IKEA DETOLF cabinet into a gerbil cage

1. Take out the door of the cabinet.

2. Remove the metal frame out of the cabinet. Most importantly, MAKE SURE THAT YOU SUPPORT THE SIDES. DO NOT LET IT FALL APART!!!

3. Take the metal frame and saw off the crossbars and bottom, so only the top bar stays intact.

4. Remove the top and the bottom of the cabinet.

5. Insert glue in the slot of one side.

6. Then put the cabinet together and let it stand on the side with the glue. So there is pressure from its weight on the glue. Let the glue dry (24 hours) and then put clear/white silicone.

7. Redo step 5-6 to the other side of the cage and let it stand on the other side to dry now. (using its weight to pressurize the glue)

8. Put the metal rails (frame) in on the top of your cage

9. Use Silicone to fill the cracks and cover up the glue.

Related: IKEA DETOLF cage for dwarf hamsters

Optional — make more cages out of the cabinet

Use the glue to attach the U-profile to 1/2 or 1/3 or 2/3 of the way down the cage.

Let the glue dry.

Related: IKEA DETOLF vivarium for reptiles

Slide in one of the glass sheets.

Here you can see the gerbil cage put together. We left the rails (iron frame) on the top only. This can be easy to attach items too.

How we made the cover for the IKEA DETOLF Cabinet

1. Cut the wood sideways into the size of each cage to create a top.

2. Use the metal “L”s to attach each piece of wood to another.

Related: IKEA DETOLF as a green house

3. Place the wire mesh on top of the 1st layer of wood.

4. Repeat the above 3 steps.

5. Lastly, nail the 2 layers of wood and the wire mesh together using nails.

See the full tutorial of the gerbil cage.

~ by Kirsten Hopstaken

I have a LACK TV unit, but I have also a lot of devices that cannot fit into it. And IKEA does not provide other LACK products that can suit with the TV unit (as the BESTÅ can.) This is my version of the IKEA TV stand and LACK range extension.

IKEA items used:

• IKEA LACK TV unit
• IKEA LACK side table

IKEA LACK TV stand | Photo: IKEA.com

Other materials and tools:

• Wood board 50cm x 44.5cm
• 4 square shelf supports per wood shelf
• Self-adhesive vinyl wood floor planks

Instructions for IKEA TV stand and LACK extension

Assemble the LACK side tables.

Cut as many wood boards as you need to fit your electronic devices. These wood boards will become the lower tier shelves on the LACK side table.

Set a suitable height to fit the height of your device and fix the shelf support brackets into the leg of the LACK side table. Place the cut wood boards on top of the shelf support brackets.

To finish the top, I used self-adhesive floor planks with a wood grain.

The LACK side table can fit 2 or 3 additional shelves, which is the perfect height for my devices.

Cost:

The cost is the best part of this IKEA TV stand hack! 5 euro for each LACK side table, 1 or 2 euro for each wood board!

Now my IKEA TV stand and media storage look seamless with this simple and easy range extension.

~ by Alex

You may also like these IKEA TV Stand hacks

Love the LACK TV unit but it falls a little short? Here’s how to double its length and make yourself a sleek TV console. See the hack.

Love the LACK TV unit but not the style? How about turning it a little more vintage? Here’s how to give a totally different spin to your LACK TV stand.

Love the LACK TV unit but find it a tad sterile? Warm it up with wood and some new legs. You’ll never guess what they were originally. Take a look at the tutorial.

When I moved to Singapore around 5 years ago I created my first IKEA hack by combining two LACK TV Benches and the sides from a LACK TV Side Table to create a larger tv unit. Having recently moved into a new apartment it was time for a new TV cabinet.

I looked at several TV cabinet options in Singapore but could not find anything that was just what I was looking for in terms of size, design, and price. Therefore, I decided to create another IKEA hack.

Initially, I was planning to combine four fridge top cabinets similar to the hack posted by Med Venlig Hilsen. However, after further research of the IKEA catalogue, I decided to use a single high kitchen cabinet placed on its side rather than joining four fridge top cabinets together. Here’s how I hacked a TV cabinet out of a METOD high cabinet.

IKEA items used:

• IKEA METOD High cabinet 200cm
• IKEA KUNGSBACKA Door 140x40cm
• IKEA KUNGSBACKA Door 60x40cm
• IKEA UTRUSTA Shelf 40x60cm (Pair) x3
• IKEA UTRUSTA Ventilated Shelf 60x60cm
• IKEA UTRUSTA large hinge for horizontal door in black (Pair) x2
• IKEA UTBY stainless steel legs (Pair) x4
• IKEA BLANKETT Handles 595mm (Pair)

Other materials and tools:

• SO-TECH Cable Pass-Through Table Duct (200 x 70 mm)
• IKEA FIXA 5-piece hole saw set
• B&Q Black Corner Blocks
• Gorilla Wood Glue
• No. 6 x 3/4” Screws for corner blocks
• No. 8 x 1/2” Screws for legs
• Black acrylic craft paint

Hack instructions for METOD high cabinet to TV cabinet:

Before starting the project I put together a quick 3D sketch to help me visualize the finished TV cabinet.

Base Preparation:

Once assembled this TV cabinet was going to be a sizable and heavy piece of furniture. Therefore, I tried to build it as close to the final location in my living room as possible so as to minimize the number of times that I would need to turn it or move it.

As a result, I started building the TV cabinet from the ground up. The first task was to drill a hole in the base for cable entry. I drilled a 64mm diameter hole in the center of the base with the IKEA FIXA hole saw set. This 64mm hole is large enough that a stranded UK three pin plug can pass through it.

If your country has more compact power plugs you could drill a smaller diameter hole. I drilled the hole through from both sides to minimize any break outs. I then pained the cut edge with black paint for a more pleasing aesthetic finish.

Leg Installation:

The next task was to turn the base over and to install the four IKEA UTBY stainless steel legs at the corners of the cabinet base.

As I would be placing a significant amount of equipment inside the cabinet and a large 60″ television on top of it I also installed four additional IKEA UTBY stainless steel legs in the middle.

The front legs are set back so that they would be hidden and the finished TV cabinet would have a clean and sleek appearance.

However, these additional legs provide the required strength to support the weight to be placed inside and on top of the cabinet and are positioned directly under the columns that would support the top.

Shelf Preparation:

I started by opening all of the IKEA UTRUSTA shelves and laying them out the six pieces on the floor.

I then used post-it notes to label the inside face and front/top edge of each panel for easy reference.

In order to ensure that I drilled the holes in these six shelves correctly, I created a table and diagram to document which shelf required each set of holes.

I then created a template showing where all of the different holes should be drilled so as to ensure consistent alignment across all of the shelves. The light grey box in the upper left-hand corner represents the UTRUSTA hinge. There was just enough space above the hinge for the corner block to be installed.

Preparing the Shelves – Part 1 (Cable Holes):

In order the provide additional strength to the cabinet and support the weight of the TV I used pairs of IKEA UTRUSTA shelves located around 60cm in from the left and right end of the cabinet. To enable cables to pass between the three compartments I drilled a 64mm hole in the lower part of each shelf. I then used back paint to cover the inner edges of the holes.

Preparing the Shelves – Part 2 (Equipment Shelf):

For most of the cabinet, I would use the full height due to the size of my equipment and the requirement for good cooling in the warm climate of Singapore. However, I decided to install one horizontal shelf on the right-hand side to maximize internal storage for slimmer equipment.

For this, I used the IKEA UTRUSTA Ventilated Shelf as this had a gap at the back allowing me to route cables between the upper and lower sections without making modifications to another full depth shelf. This shelf would be supported on four black corner blocks.

Preparing the Shelves – Part 3 (Supporting Columns):

Shelves 2 & 3 and 4 & 5 were fixed together using wood glue to create strong columns capable of supporting the weight of the television to be placed on top of the finished cabinet. I would also add an extra vertical shelf to each end of the cabinet for greater strength that would be attached during the assembly using wood glue.

Preparing the Shelves – Part 4 (Hinge Holes):

For my design I wanted to the doors to open upwards rather than sideways, therefore I needed to use the IKEA UTRUSTA large hinge for horizontal doors. However, as the high cabinet was designed to have regular hinges installed on the sides (now top and bottom) I needed to mount these hinges to the vertical IKEA UTRUSTA shelves. I had previously purchased an IKEA METOD fridge top cabinet so I used this as a template to measure the location of the required mounting holes.

Preparing the End Panels:

Unfortunately, the end panels of the cabinet have a number of holes drilled in them that would in the original vertical orientation have had adjustable legs attached to them. This would look ugly if left exposed on the ends of my TV cabinet. Therefore, I reversed the panels so that these holes would be on the inside of the cabinet. The outside was clean with the exception of a vertical recess that the back panel would normally slot into. I painted this recess with black paint so it would be almost invisible once installed in the finished cabinet.

Installing the Shelves (aka Columns):

I worked from right to left adding the shelves. I used the horizontal ventilated shelf to correctly position the right-hand column. An additional shelf was placed inside the right-hand end panel to ensure the correct positioning. The horizontal shelf would be installed later after the top had been installed to provide better access. Then the left-hand column was installed. Each column was installed using 4 black plastic corner blocks.

Top Preparation:

You could feed the cables to your TV through the back of the cabinet. However, I want the finished TV cabinet to sit flush against the wall so this was not an option. Therefore, it was necessary to make holes in the top of the cabinet.

I purchased a black metal cable outlet from eBay in Germany: SO-TECH Cable Pass-Through Table Duct (200 x 70 mm). After drilling a series of holes using a 4mm drill around the outside of the cutout I used a fret saw to remove the wood between the holes and some sandpaper to smooth off any edges. There was only a 5mm overlap on the cable outlet so I had to be careful not to make the hole too large. Then I used some black paint to hide the inner edges of the hole.

Installing the Back Panel:

As I had reversed the end panels to hide the holes the recess that the back panel would normally slot into is now on the outside of the cabinet. Therefore, I had to reduce the width of the back panel so that it would fit. With the intention to have my cabinet positioned flush against the wall I needed to make some extra holes in the back panels to accommodate the plug sockets and in particular my bulky power line network extender.

I marked up the back panel and drilled a 10mm hole in the corners. I then used a fret saw to cut out the sections to be removed. The back panel was installed using a combination of the supplied nails and wood glue to provide additional strength to the cabinet.

Top and Horizontal Shelf Installation:

The cabinet top panel was installed using the standard parts. Then an additional shelf was glued inside each end panel to provide greater strength and to cover up the leg holes in the end panels. The two supporting columns were also attached to the top using more black plastic corner blocks.

The IKEA UTRUSTA Ventilated Shelf was installed using a single screw in the front corner blocks to prevent it being pulled out if I needed to remove any of my equipment. At this point, I had a good view of how the final cabinet would look.

Putting everything together:

The doors were attached to the UTRUSTA large hinge for horizontal door with the black covers fitted. The hinges supporting the longer door on the right of the cabinet required the tension to be increased so that they could support the weight of the door. To improve the visual appearance of the cabinet doors I added the BLANKETT metal handles to the bottom edges of the doors. I went for the longest versions that would fit my smaller cabinet door (595mm) to emphasize the long and low design of my TV unit. The final step was to install all of my equipment and to place my TV on the top.

See more of the METOD turned TV cabinet on my blog.

~ by James Evans

I wanted a new desk using the full length of the space beneath my window. When working from home I would like to look at the view once a while. Because I also have a foldaway bed in the room I didn’t want to use up too much space so my solution was to make an extendable desktop/ keyboard tray as part of the desk.

Take a look at the “Before” and “After” photos and see what a huge difference it made to my space.

IKEA items used:

• ALGOT system to create the wall-mounted desk
• ALGOT wire basket
• ALGOT pull-out rails for basket

Tools:

• Handsaw
• Screwdriver
• Drill

How I made the ALGOT desk with extendable desktop and keyboard tray

I used the ALGOT system to make a long wall-mounted desk. For the extendable desktop/ keyboard tray I used the ALGOT wire basket (which I cut with a handsaw) and the ALGOT pull-out rail for baskets. Be careful not to cut yourself.

old KRISTER computer desk

Remove the top rim from the basket to use with the pull-out rails

I combined this with a part of my old IKEA computer table. I bought it about 20 years ago and it was called the KRISTER. Discontinued now.

Related: Complete home office and workstation hack. Massive!

I put this part on top of/ in the cut-off rim of the basket. I didn’t expect it, but it fit perfectly. My keyboard tray slides perfectly beneath the ALGOT wall-mounted desk.

Related: No space for a long desk? Try these 6 L-shaped desks to boost productivity

~ by Farida

I need help from the IKEAhackers community.

I am building 7 tall narrow BILLY bookcases to cover a wall. On my very first one, I put the top shelf in backwards – but didn’t realize this until I turned the completed bookshelf right side up.

I tried to gently pry the backing board off, but it started to tear and crack. Even if I manage to get the backing off and deconstruct the whole bookcase, I’ll still have nail holes across the white front edge of the shelf. I could remount this as a bottom shelf and the holes would be less visible, but I don’t want to tear apart the backing board. What do I do?

Thanks!

Bethany

***

Hi Bethany,

From my experience, the best way to remove the backing board is to use a mallet. If you don’t have one, wrap the face of a regular hammer with a piece of cloth to soften its blows. You’ll also need a piece of cardboard to protect the BILLY backing board against hammer marks.

Once you have the materials, from the inside of the bookcase, place the cardboard flush against the edges where the nails are. Then with the mallet gently knock the cardboard to push the nails out of the frame. You may need to knock in a few positions along the edges to dislodge the row of nails, instead of trying to push out one nail at a time. Do not pry from the back of the bookcase as it will break, as you have experienced.

Related: See more Hackers Help questions

Once the backing board is off, you will need to deconstruct the bookcase and put the shelf in the right way. And yes, mounting the nail-holes-riddled-shelf as a bottom shelf is a good idea. If they are still very obvious, some dabs of white wood putty may do the trick.

Another option, if you do not wish to go through all that hassle of assembling it correctly is to use an iron-on edge banding. Measure the thickness of the shelf and get an edge banding that’s wider than it. Iron it on and then cut off the excess for a clean finish. The downside of this option is you may not get an exact match in terms of color. And that particular shelf may stick out like a sore thumb against your other 6 BILLY bookcases. 

Hope it works out and you can rescue your BILLY.

Jules

To separate our open kitchen and living room, we made a steel structure that provides additional countertop space, kitchen storage as well as functions as a space divider.

IKEA items used:

• METOD Base cabinets with brown-black frames
• NORJE doors, oak with glass front
• NORJE doors, with acid glass

Our open kitchen plan

We built the structure in raw steel. Then, the structure was welded, perforated, polished and painted opaque transparent by itself.

After assembling the kitchen cabinets, we bolted the structure to the lower cabinets and secured the top to the ceiling. The structure is turned through threaded rivets.

The upper cabinets are screwed with self-drilling screws both above and below the horizontal irons.

No tracks have been used behind the furniture.

The front doors are connected with IKEA hinges as per manual.

The rear ones are screwed with metal anchors.

The vertical structure rests on the ground, is screwed sideways to the IKEA bases and connected to the ceiling with two 10mm plugs on each side.

View more photos of this open kitchen hack on Google Drive.

And a special thank you to Sabrina for your trust.

~ by William_rmc

When decorating the living room in our new house, my wife and I searched for a wood/steel combination wall lamp. We did not find an exactly what we wanted, or we declared it as was way too expensive, but the HEKTAR design from IKEA did have the shade form we liked.

So I decided to put in on some wood slabs so it would completely fulfill our requirements. The building process was relatively simple.

IKEA items used:

• HEKTAR ceiling track with 3 spots

Other materials and tools:

• Some wood slabs from a local home store
• Wires
• Screw terminal

Hack instructions for HEKTAR wall lamp

First, we disassembled the HEKTAR lamp. It left us with 3 lampshades connected with some wire.

After choosing a nice layout of the wood slabs, I milled the centre of the slab (where the lamp is mounted) back to 5mm thickness.

The shaft of the HEKTAR lampshade is not that long. I milled some tracks to route the wires from one lamp to another and used a few small metal strips to connect the wood slabs.

Connecting the lamps with screwterminals finalized the process. Within a few hours, it was done.

~ by Tim V

Here is my latest hack: A headboard with lights (backlit) made out of an IKEA LINNMON table top. The wall behind my bed was starting to turn dirty and wanted a nice cheap headboard to match the rest of the bedroom deco.

Materials:

• 1 x 150cm LINNMON table top, I chose white as it felt better in my bedroom
• 4 x flexed-steel mounting brackets
• 16 x 25mm lag-screws
• 4 x 6mm masonry plugs (a.k.a dowels)
• 4 x 30mm square-angled hooks
• 16 x 1x6mm washers
• 1 x 150cm LED strip (with wall-plug socket)

Tools:

• Drill (wireless preferred)
• Screw-driver drill-accessory
• Drill bits:
  – 1x 5mm
  – 1x 6mm
  – 1x 3mm
• Square ruler
• Adhesive and covering tapes
• Some cord and a pencil
• Hammer
• Pliers

Steps for a headboard with lights:

1. The LINNMON board is so light-weight due to up to 80% of the inner volume made out of paper (such as the LACK table).

Related: Stylish and affordable built-in headboard with RAST chests

Use the corners and the short sides to attach the flexed-steel mounting brackets. Position them where you want them to be (5 and 7cm from border for my case) and mark the drilling holes

TIP! Keep your board protected. Use its original cardboard packaging as your base surface.

2. Drill all 4 holes per each of the 4 plates.

TIP! Before drilling, use some covering tape on your drill bits to mark the depth limit and avoid going through if your bit is too long.

3. Place some washers between the plates and the board so the square-angled hooks fit inside. Tighten the lag-screws.

Related: See all our headboard hacks

4. As it is a headboard with lights, place the LED strip at the back panel along your upper long border some 2-3cm away from the edge.

TIP1! Make sure it works before gluing.
TIP2! Use some dual-layer adhesive tape to attach the switch onto the side border, thus making it very accessible

5. At the wall, take some references (paintings, pictures, bed, etc…). I used my DIY Tintin paintings which were exactly 150cm.

TIP! Use the cord and the pencil to transfer vertical dimensions. Gravity is your friend!

Double-check with a square ruler and mark the 4 drilling holes depending on the position of the flexed-steel plates at the board

6. Let’s drill!

TIP! Use first a 5mm drill-bit, it’s slightly smaller than your 6mm masonry plug. Then, polish your hole softly with a 6mm drill-bit.

7. Place the masonry plugs in each hole and press gently with a hammer.
Screw the square-shaped hooks.

TIP! Some pliers can make it easier for you.

8. Just attach the headboard to the hooks and you’re done. Perfect!
Remember this is a two-person task.

I hope you enjoyed it.

See you at the next hack!

~ by Diego Pintos

I had been looking for a reasonably priced radiator shelf but as I wanted to cover a storage heater none were deep enough. I thought of hacking a BILLY but wandering around IKEA, I saw the HEJNE and the EKBY which were the perfect size and they inspired me.

I am also in rented accommodation so as I can’t start drilling into the walls to fix a shelf. I needed something free standing.

IKEA items used:

• EKBY shelf 119cm x 28cm
• HEJNE storage – 3 x double 28cm shelf packs
• 1 x post

Other materials:

• 35mm size 4 screws

Hack instructions for radiator shelf:

Screw a HEJNE shelf to each short side of the EKBY shelf using the IKEA bolts provided. You will need to drill holes in the shelf ends.

I used one of the HEJNE posts, cut to size with a mini circular saw, at the bottom across the front to stabilise it using the existing holes and IKEA bolts per the IKEA instructions. I wanted to put one at the back too but the radiator I was covering has feet so I couldn’t.

I then realised I hadn’t accounted for the skirting board so rather than trying to fashion a cut out for it I used the other HEJNE post across the back, fixing it to the shelves per the HEJNE instructions. I made it slightly higher than the EKBY so I could use the existing holes but you could fix it level if wanted by drilling new holes.

I then used 3 x 35mm screws to fix it to the EKBY shelf for stability. The other 4 shelves were used across the front. I used the IKEA bolts (2 per shelf) to screw the end of the shelf into the EKBY top (holes need to be drilled) and then used the 35mm screws, through the existing holes, to fix to the post across the bottom.

The radiator shelf took about 4 hours to make. Total cost came up to £28. I am sure my hubby who is an engineer and a whiz at DIY could have done it much more quickly!

What I like about the radiator shelf hack is its relative simplicity. It’s easy for someone not experienced in DIY to do. The hardest part about this hack was carrying all the stuff home on the tram as I do not drive!

I bought an Allen key attachment for the screwdriver drill which was the best thing ever and made the screwing of the bolts easy.

~ by Liz

My “RFID Shelf”-project is a LACK shelf which is able to play music placing RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags on it. Essentially, you can say it’s an RFID controlled MP3 player. The reason for this project was I wanted to enable little kids to choose their own music or fairy tale like I did by switching tapes (or even vinyls) when I was a kid. In times of MP3 and Spotify that’s kind of hard, so I created this shelf.

IKEA items used:

• LACK Shelf

Other materials and tools:

• Electric drill
• Hole saw (if you don’t have one, you can get the FIXA 5-piece hole saw set at IKEA together with the shelf)
• Soldering iron
• Long, stable screw driver or something similar
• Click here for full list

Hack instructions for RFID Shelf:

I chose the IKEA LACK shelf to house the RFID Shelf because of its hollow structure.

First, use a hole saw to create an opening for the speaker. The hole should be on the bottom of the shelf.

Related: Kids’ stereo player in a HEMNES dresser

Remove the paper from inside the LACK shelf.

Drill another hole on the side of the shelf for the USB connector.

Then put the base board in, using plastic spacers to affix it inside the shelf.

Lastly, close the hole with the speaker. It should sit quite tight. And you’re ready to go.

Full instructions and files for the RFID Shelf is available on Github.

Testing out the RFID Shelf with 3 different RFID tags, playing 3 different content.

See one of the first users of the RFID Shelf.

RFID cards can be assigned a folder containing MP3 files on a SD card, played when the card is put on the shelf. Using some creativity (and/or the Internet and a printer) those cards can be customized to represent their content, giving the kid the ability to distinguish them. A WiFi web interface gives you the ability to manage the files on the shelf and to program the cards.

~by Claus Naeveke

I really loved making this hat and coat rack for the mudroom. It’s a very simple project you can tackle over a weekend very easily, for a stunning result. I’ve had only good comments about this.

Be sure to use a hand saw as the dowels are not firmly screwed and will just roll if you try to use a handsaw.

IKEA items used:

• AXTORP winerack (x1)

AXTORP | IKEA.com

• LACK TV Bench (x1)

LACK | IKEA.com

• MALINDA chair pad (x2)

MALINDA | IKEA.com

Other materials and tools :

• Hand Saw
• Sandpaper
• Paint
• Thread and needle

Hack instructions for mudroom hat and coat rack:

For the hat and coat rack:

Saw the wine rack in half, leaving you with two sets of hangers. (Note: Since the dowels are not firmly screwed you will have to do it with a hand saw, an electric saw will not work)

Sand the edges of the dowels.

Paint the edges with a dash of paint (I used white but feel free to go crazy with different colors, kids will love this!)

Hang it to the wall!

For the bench :

Cut the bottom of the pads.

Remove some foam.

Sew the pads to the new length.

Put the pads on the bench.

You can also build a proper bench pad with some foam mattress but I had these chair pads I wanted to re-use. Hope you have fun with this!

~ by Cecilia

I decided to make the bag because this year raffia bags are in fashion and the first thing that came to mind were the IKEA placemats.

It took me 3 days because I had to think about how to do each of the pieces and which one would go before the next.

IKEA items used:

• 3 placemats (model LÄTTAD)
• 0,60 metres fabric (model MARGARETA)

Other materials and tools:

• Leather
• 0,37 metres of zipper
• 6 rivets

Hack Instructions for round raffia bag:

First step: To make the side of the bag is to undo one of the placemats to take advantage of the same straw and the same thread. For this, you have to go holding the straw with tweezers so that it does not fall apart.

Second step: You have to join and shape the side with the same type of sewing, with 6 straw strips of 0.80 meters and covering the ends with 2 pieces of leather.

Third step: With other 2 strips of straw of 0.75 meters, the handles of the bag are lined and sewn to the 2 placemats at the front and back (you can put or not the ornamental rivets)

Fourth step: Make the part of the zipper and join it to the 2 placemats.

Fifth step: Join all the pieces made so far.

Sixth step: Sew the lining to the inner seam of the zipper

The cost:

• Ikea: € 12 for the 3 placemats and € 4 for the fabric
• Leather: € 2
• Zipper € 0.70
• 6 rivets € 0.90

Total = € 19,60

With what was left over from the third placemat, I made a pot stand.

What I liked most about the hack is that there is no other raffia bag like that and the comments that people made on my Facebook page.

The hardest part was to sew the zipper and the lining, but it did not have much problem.

Pay special attention to the order of the joining of the pieces. It is essential to do so in the order that I have described.

If I did it again, I might have added 2 more strips to the width of the side, but my friends told me that this was great.

I received a lot of comments on my personal facebook page and another page that I have of things I do with leather (when I’m unemployed like now) as well as on the street, people love my Ike-bag.

My link in Facebook to the raffia bag photos is “Isa en Cueros”

~ by Isabel Rejes Canoura, O Valadouro (Lugo – Spain)

My wife was making cake frosting and we didn’t have a hand mixer or power blender. And I thought using a whisk is too time-consuming. But I have an IKEA FIXA series cordless screwdriver/ drill, so, I made a hand mixer out of it and named it ‘FIXA-MIXA’.

It took about 5 minutes (and I had the electrical insulation tape handy.)

IKEA items used:

• FIXA series handheld drill + bit holder
• KONCIS series balloon whisk

Images courtesy of IKEA.com

Other materials and tools:

• Electrical insulation tape

Hack instructions for FIXA-MIXA hand mixer:

1. Fix the bit holder to the FIXA drill.

2. Hold the KONCIS whisk handle parallel to the axis of bit holder and as close as possible.

3. Tape (electrical insulation tape or any other tape which holds) tight the whole setup as shown in the picture.

4. Do not worry if the whisk is a bit offset with the centre while rotating. It, in fact, is a feature which helps whipping/ whisking the frosting for cakes and other patisseries.

Related: Latte on the double. My turbo milk frother.

5. Adjust the torque settings depending on the consistency of the batter. (Warning: not recommended for denser batter)

The only thing to pay special attention to is to keep the whisk axis aligned with the drill’s axis while taping tight. Make sure you tape it nice and tight so that it does not fly off / get detached from the drill while rotating.

See it in action in this video:

I like that my FIXA-MIXA hand mixer is simple and does the job perfectly well. Friends liked it. More than all, my wife loved it.

~ by Karthik

Related: Make a doily-lace 2-tier cake stand in 5 minutes

This IKEA hack is to create a built-in under-eaves wardrobe for our attic bedroom roof using IKEA’s METOD kitchen cabinet series.

It began when we decided that we wanted a built-in wardrobe under the rake ceiling in our attic. A raked ceiling creates odd spaces, but it also creates for some interesting advantages over standard wardrobes.

We wanted to have an under-eaves wardrobe with no back on it such that we can slide the clothes to the side and crawl through into ‘Narnia’ and store large items (suitcases, etc). We also wanted to have drawers without doors in front of them to maximise the usable storage space.

before

Alternative options

Given the odd shape, we first contacted a local ‘custom’ wardrobe company. By ‘custom’ they mean that they can assemble flat pack wardrobes in any of the predefined ways (almost ‘modular’). If you want to vary the design in any way (i.e. actually custom) there was no way they could possibly make it work.

Remember how I wanted a long hanging-rail so I could slide clothes to the side and put suitcases through? I was told that this wasn’t possible for ‘engineering’ reasons. Clothes are heavy and their maximum width for a hanging rail was 80cm (I wanted 160cm).

While I appreciate clothes are heavy, maybe using metal rather than plastic is what is required…. Idiots. I could work around that stupidity, but the big problem was the drawers. If you wanted drawers that actually have a clean finish and aren’t wobbly you have a problem. They don’t do drawers which I could call suitable to have on display on the outside of a wardrobe.

Next, we contacted a cabinet maker our builder recommended. This guy was amazing. Whatever we wanted, he could do. His plan was to use his laser machine to measure out the room, draw the design on a computer and cut out all the components on a CNC machine. If you want 1mm gaps around the drawers, no problems. If you want 1.5mm gaps around the drawers, no problems. The only problem was the price … $6,500!

Our IKEA hack option: Under-eaves wardrobe from IKEA kitchen cabinets

IKEA to the rescue. What we needed was a modular set of cheap cabinets which have high-quality sets of drawers. What we need was an IKEA kitchen. The photo shows the original design plan.

I won’t go into too much detail because the specifics are just what is needed to fit our room. As such, I haven’t written this as a step-by-step but I’ve instead explained each section. I figure anyone reading this will just be copying/drawing inspiration from various bits of this project.

Please note that this under-eaves wardrobe hack was done in Australia (so IKEA METOD kitchen was used, our hardware as sourced at Bunnings, all measurements are metric, all prices are in dolllarydoos).

Components for our under-eaves wardrobe

This outlines the various components used.

Materials: IKEA

• 2 x METOD (80 x 80 x 60cm) cabinet
• 2 x METOD (80 x 60 x 37cm) cabinet
• 8 x drawers (80 x 20 x 60cm)
• 4 x drawers (80 x 20 x 37cm)
• 2 x Blank plates
• 4 x doors (140 x 40cm)

Materials: Non-IKEA

• 19mm plywood
• Aluminium pipe
• Dowel
• Structural timber
• Gyprock sheeting (aka drywall)
• Aluminium gyprock cornice
• Plaster
• ~2.4m x 80mm length of hardwood decking used to make all the handles

Under-Eaves Wardrobe: Building the drawer units

The first step was to build the two side units.

Each side unit was made of 2 cabinets – one h80 x w80 x d60cm, one h60 x w80 x d37

First I placed the bottom cabinet on a small ply plinth (19mm high) to ensure that the bottom drawer did not scrape along the floor when it was opened.

The shallower top cabinet needed to be modified to fit under the raked ceiling. As luck would have it, IKEA cabinets come with mammoth amounts of cardboard. I was able to make a template of the available space out of some spare cardboard. I used the template and a jigsaw to chop the side pieces of the shallower cabinet to size.

Now some of you might be saying “jigsaw – shouldn’t you be using a table saw?!?!” and the answer to that is simple…. “Come-on man, can’t you see that I’m bothering to do an IKEA hack to maximise my storage in an attic? Clearly, I don’t have room to store a table saw!” Besides, these are the side pieces and won’t be visible in the final solution.

To chop down the cabinets, it is best to have a DIY buddy who can help hold the offcuts. In my case, my DIY partner in crime is heavily pregnant so I replaced her with a kettlebell.

Next, I attached the top cabinet to the bottom cabinet using small brackets (with the final primary structural support coming later when I fixed the plywood side pieces for the hanging section together).

Each whole side unit was now ready to have the plastering added (see next section) and to be anchored to the floor with some heavy duty hex screws (note that it is important that the units are very securely affixed in place so they cannot tip forward and squash small children!).

Once these unit frames are in their final, fixed position, the drawers can be added.

As there is not enough depth for a drawer at the very top of each unit, this section has just been covered with a blank plate which is simply an IKEA drawer front (hey, we know they fit) which is screwed to the unit frame with some brackets.

Under-Eaves Wardrobe: Hanging space frames

I didn’t have any luck finding an IKEA METOD base cabinet which would work for the hanging space. Instead, I decided on a DIY approach. I found that the standard METOD range has 19mm thick walls. My local hardware store sold plywood which was 18mm thick – close enough. I had to buy a large sheet which was 2.4m x 1.2m.

I re-used the templates I had made for cutting the drawer units for making the side pieces.

The best bit of advice I can give with this is to have your hardware store make all of the cuts for you if possible. They can do millimetre perfect straight long cuts very quickly and easily. It would have taken me ages to do all the cuts at home with my wobbly jigsaw.

The frame for the hanging space was then screwed to the side draw cabinets to create added structural strength for the drawer units.

Hanging space doors

For the doors, I used 4 of IKEA’s METOD h140 x w40cm door fronts.

I used the regular IKEA hinges. These hinges are designed to be inserted into pre-existing holes in the METOD cabinet frames and tightened with a screw. Since I am not using a METOD frame to attach the doors to, after much f***ing about, I decided it would make sense to remove the IKEA screws from the hinge brackets and instead use regular screws that could more easily go into the plywood hanging space frames I had made.

I measured out the existing holes on the METOD cabinets used for the drawers to establish how high the screw holes for the door hinge brackets should be in the plywood frames (so that the hinge brackets would align to the hinges in the doors).

I then translated these measurements onto my plywood frame, and then screwed in the hinge brackets to the plywood frames.

Next, I attached the hinges to the doors as per IKEA instructions, and then just clicked them into the hinge brackets that I had attached to the frames.

Luckily, the IKEA hinges have a fair amount of flexibility in them so they could be moved around once installed to straighten the doors (google ‘how to adjust European cabinet hinges’).

The hanging rail

The hanging rail is well over-engineered in this design. I figure that a wardrobe which is overfull with clothes hanging can create a lot of weight. In addition to this, the hanging bar is quite long. I used 70mm x 35mm structural pine to create the supports which a metal hanging rail would fit into.

Originally I was going to use galvanised piping but I wasn’t sure if it was going to rust. In the end, I went with aluminium tubing which was (from memory 1.5mm thick). For additional strength (I did say over-engineered) I filled the centre of the tubing with 25mm dowel.

Under-Eaves Wardrobe: Plastering

The design allowed for a 3cm gap between the edge of the drawer cabinet/hanging frames and the wall. The plan was to fill the gap with gyprock (drywall) sheeting. The only problem with this is that I had no gyprocking experience. After about an hour of research on YouTube I had a vague enough of an idea for how I was going to do the sheeting. Keep in mind that this is my first time doing this, so if you are reading this trying to learn how the experts do this stuff, you should probably hit the back button now.

Normally you would (apparently) attach the gyprock to the wall and use aluminium corners to strengthen any exterior corners, and then fit the cabinets within this gyprocked space. The problem is that I didn’t have any battens to attach the gyprock to. I also didn’t want to attach any battens to the wall as it I would have been a massive pain in the a$$ to get the battens exactly aligned to where the cabinets were going to fit in (nothing in our 130 year old house is square).

Instead, my plan was to attach the gyprock to the cabinets (using aluminium corners as a bracket and tiny screws and gyprock glue) and then align the cabinets into the space where I wanted them to go (and fill any remaining space between the gyprock edge and the ceiling/walls with plastering tape).

The first step was to install two or three drawers into each frame so that I could ensure that when I attached the sheeting it was flush with the drawer fronts.

Once I had the gyprock attached to the frames and put the frames in situ, there were some moderate gaps between the gyprock edges and the existing ceiling/walls (due to the ceiling/walls not being straight). I bridged these gaps with mesh gyprocking tape, and then plastered over the tape with pre-mixed plaster (couple of coats with vigorous sanding between coats).

Under-Eaves Wardrobe: Handles

The look I was going for was for some classic hardwood handles to match the timber floors. After some googling, I found a company that would make the handles for me. I was however shocked at their pricing, $650 for the handles! This outrageous pricing got me thinking, I could just try and knock up some handles with some scrap hardwood timber I had left over from when I made the fence.

I’ll be brief on making the handles because, frankly, they don’t qualify as an Ikea hack.

Step 1) The timber was in a very bad shape and needed to be planed down.

Step 2) I used my trusty (wobbly) jigsaw to cut out the shape of the handles. As it is hard to keep it cutting straight, I had the main faces of the handles facing out so I wouldn’t need to chop them.

Step 3) I rounded over all of the edges with a router which I bought to do this job (I figured that I saved $650 by doing it myself)

Step 4) Paint the timber and pre-drill holes for the screws

And that concludes our under-eaves wardrobe for our attic.

~ by Adrian

All I need were basic painting materials, wood glue and an unexpected craft item (wooden doll heads purchased in bulk), to transform two dark IKEA MALM dressers owned for years into one stylish and unique bobbin furniture inspired dresser.

before

Materials

• IKEA MALM dresser x 2
• Wood ball knobs / wooden doll heads
• Wood glue
• Primer
• Paint
• Paint roller
• Angle sash brush

“Bobbin furniture” {also called spool furniture, see my Pinterest board on it} is very popular lately, but the technique dates back to the 17th century. It’s basically a heavy ornament consisting of repeating small knobs or bobbins used mostly on chairs and tables.

For my dressers, the process was extremely easy: first priming, then gluing the wood ball knobs/ doll heads around the drawers, and finally, painting which was the most time-consuming part as the doll heads had to be painted one by one.

Here are a few details of my bobbin furniture inspired MALM dresser:

I first removed the drawers and placed them on their back side, onto protected floors. Having them in an upwards position makes gluing the knobs and painting the drawers easier.

I used this primer on all of the dressers’ and drawers’ external dark surfaces. I’ve used it before on other furniture and it proved to work great for priming non-wood materials.

To attach the knobs, I worked with one drawer at a time. First, I positioned the knobs in place and then glued each one making sure that they were perfectly aligned. Wood glue is very easy to work with and it gives plenty of time to reposition, if needed. I used this wood glue and I applied just a little on the ball knob flat surface.

Then, I painted all the external surfaces (dressers, drawers & knobs), ensuring that all knobs were nicely covered from all angles. I did three coats of paint to cover the old dark color of the dressers, while the knobs looked fine after only two coats of paint.

And that’s it!

The total cost for the remake of one dresser did not exceed the amount of $65 and that includes all supplies.

You can also have a look at my other IKEA hacks. I turned the IKEA LACK coffee table into the perfect nightstand, upgraded the transparent SAMLA boxes into classy storage boxes and used scrapbook paper to cover up MALM drawer fronts. It was so affordable and took less than an hour.

Find more photos and the full tutorial of the bobbin furniture inspired MALM dresser on my blog, Once Again, My Dear Irene.

~ by Angelica