BILLY goes luxe in this set of built-in living room shelves.
Like so many of us, Claire always dreamt of having a wall of built-in living room shelves. But bespoke carpentry was way out of budget.
So like many other DIYers she turned to IKEA for give her the luxe look for less.
IKEA item used:
BILLY bookcase (80cm wide) x 4 — £35 each
OXBERG door x 4 — £20 each
Other materials:
MDF sheet, strip wood, strong adhesive, skirting and filler (all from B&Q) to create the ‘built in’ style — approx. £60
MDF strips (left over from a previous panelling project) — approx. £20
Primer for MDF — £20
Colour match emulsion from my favourite Decorating Centre Online – £21.99
Total Cost £341.99
How to hack IKEA built-in living room shelves
This was how her space looked before the BILLY hack.
She built the BILLY bookcases and stood the frames in position before fixing them to the wall.
Then Claire made a strip wood frame for the gap between the top of the bookcases and the ceiling. She then attached MDF sheets to the front of the frame to cover the gap.
#1 Thicker frames
Next was a genius step that gave her BILLY built-in display shelves a luxurious style.
She glued MDF strips over the joints between the bookcases and to the shelf fronts for a thicker appearance. Claire also filled the gaps along the sides of the wall.
Then, she added a skirting board to the base of the unit to hide the individual bookcase bases.
#2 Filled up holes
The next step is tedious and often overlooked but it made a huge difference.
She filled all the pre-drilled shelf dowel holes to get rid of the ‘flat-pack’ look. All the gaps and joints in the mdf panels are also covered with Polyfilla.
Once dried, Claire sanded the MDF and filler to give a smooth finish and applied two coats with MDF primer.
The final step was to paint the whole thing. When the paint dried, it was all ready for styling et voilà!
See the full tutorial and her tips for styling on a tight budget on her blog.
~ by Claire Douglas
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