He says, "Ikea is one of my favorite places, being a Swede, it's one of the few places to grab a flavasoft for a decent price. I needed an inexpensive way to hopefully make my office look nice, clean and a little bit stylish.
I liked the look of the White Liatorp book cases but they did not come in black-brown and are also very expensive compared to the Billy system. I then essentially mated some As-is Liatorp doors to a Billy, creating the look of the Liatorp for an inexpensive price.
I found all of the following in the As-is Section, but this could be assembled with raw components as well. The Liatorp glass doors are much more elegant than the traditional Billy doors, I found these for $10 each in the As-is section. They come in white and not in the Black-Brown that I needed. I used a quality Espresso colored spray paint and gave them one light coat.
Followed by a heavier coat in a Black with Satin finish. I feathered it in a manner that the brown lightly shows through in places giving it a black brown appearance.
The center desk is a Gustav Desk in black brown The desk is normally US$299 but I found one in the As-is for considerably less, There was a good chip knocked off one of the front corners, but I rotated the desk top, to place it away from view.
The base of the bookshelves are the standard Billy units. I used to black units with various amounts of damage, but was easily hide-able with the doors. The black units I found were preferable to the black brown which were more expensive.
The Liatorp doors are normally at US$125 a pair and are a bit larger than the Billy Doors, so I had to use three sets of brass hinges from the hardware store for each book case. I let the doors hang over the edge and then fastened the brass hinges behind the door and against the outside of the Billy, they remain out of sight and work functionally.
The book cases do need to be fastened to the wall as the glass doors make them front heavy and prone to tip.
In the future I am going to add some glass Billy shelves, LED lighting and a small bit of crown molding to the top of each unit to give it a bit more detail."
Other work stations you may be interested in:
- A floating computer table
- Home office makeover
- An Effektiv work station
- A computer table from a door
- Gorgeous Besta work station
- Huge 8' work desk
