Chachut

Materials: Not, Mammut

Description: I had the NOT lamp and the MAMMUT shelf for a long time by my bed as a reading light and book shelf, one day I accidentally knocked the lamp down and broke its standing pole.

Instead of throwing it away I decided to attach the lamp to the shelf to maintain the same function as before.

The process was quite straight forward, the shelf opens into two parts so all the cables can be hidden inside, I drilled holes for the lamp poles and cables and that was it.

~ Daniel Metcalfe, IT

LACK side table to shelf hack

Materials: 4 LACK side tables, a broomstick

Description: During remodelling I was in need of a shelf to be placed beside my bed. It should hold my alarm clock, the entertainment center and some other stuff.

Not finding anthing I like and not wanting to spend money into something I dislike I almost left IKEA empty handed.

Almost leaving, but then found a special offer of LACK: 1,99 Euros (about $ 2,60) a item. The hidden price to pay was to become used to the ugly light blue color.

So this really simple hack is made of 4 LACK side tables with three legs attched. I used MS Polymer to glue the table legs on the desk top.

Not shown is a vertical attached broomstick that is screwed to the table tops at the far end side. The broomstick is strapped to a hook in the wall.

The result does not look too ugly and is even cheaper than Hyllis (4 LACK: 7,96 Euro, 1 Hyllis: 7,99 Euro).

~ Holger, Germany

Billy bookcase redux

Materials: Billy bookcase, wrapping paper, mod podge

Description: I've posted all the instructions and step by step photos here.

See more of Sharon's Billy bookcase

~ Sharon Pakir, Melbourne, Australia

Wall Heater Cover/Bookshelves

Materials: Lack Wall Shelves, Ekby Jarpen Wall Shelves, Ekby Bjarnum Brackets, Tundra Laminate Flooring, Nails, Glue, Aluminum Strip and Plywood

Description: This was a two-fold solution. We wanted to cover our hideous wall heater and needed some sort of storage. We initially had a Expedit shelving unit, but it was a bit bulky. So...here are the steps.

1. Frame out desired area using Lack shelves.

2. Attach plywood to wall (we rent, so we wanted to make this removable without having to do a ton of repair work which would be required if we attached flooring directly to the wall).

3. Glue laminate flooring to plywood.

4. Cover any exposed edges of plywood and laminate flooring with aluminum corner strips. (You can see ours on the right-hand side of the unit where it butts up to the door.)

5. Hang shelves.

6. Decorate!

Oh, and we used a panel from a folding screen I got a few years ago from West Elm. Another idea might be some sort of mesh wiring. Really, anything that would cover over the hideousness without decreasing air flow.

~ Ryan & Lizzie Lewis, Santa Monica, CA

Greek Pi shelf

Materials: 3 Lack shelves, glue, saw.

Description: Building this small book shelf requires three Lack shelves.

The first step is to decide the height of your book shelf. Keep in mind that books and magazines are 25 to 30 cm tall.

Cut one of the Lack shelf (starting from both ends) the two pieces that will form the pillars of the book shelf.

Glue the outer surface of the pillars on the base, then glue the top on the uprights.

Your Greek Pi shaped book shelf is done.

You can equip the book shelf with legs (I used some large Ikea balls) or use the Lack brackets to hang it on the wall (without loading too much).

~ Marco, Rome, Italy

Multiple Rast Trofast substitute

Materials: Seven Rast bedside tabels, wood panels, glue, screws, drill, wood dowels, paint. Optional: Trofast boxes, Mackis drawers.

Description: With our two young kids, we needed storage for toys, books and art supplies. I wanted to match a high and narrow built-in bookcase on the opposite wall. Unfortunately the size of the Trofast cabinet wasn't ideal, and I though it a bit too expensive. So I used five Rast bedtables to make a high and slim floating bookcase where the old mantelpiece used to be.

I attached the five Rast bedtables to each other with wood dowels and glue, then glued and screwed them to a wood panel on the back - since the wall was bent. Hung the whole thing on the wall with several screws and plugs. After some time I added a second smaller cabinet made from two Rast bedtables for extra storage.

The size is perfect for Trofast boxes, and the floating setup makes it light and airy, and easy to clean underneath. Only downside: the Rast tables are not high enough inside to accommodate our collection of foto albums, at least not upright.

(Note: The wall shelves are Fabian shelves, placed in a rhythmic pattern.)

~ G.V.M., The Netherlands

Suspension Bridge Shelf

Materials: MARKOR series home entertainment combo plus EKBY BJÄRNUM wall shelf bracket; Extra shelves from the "as is" section; castors on the coffee table so the footstool can live underneath

Description: Mounting the bridge shelf to the wall above the TV was proving more difficult than we thought... We came up with an elegant solution without having to drill holes in the wall! Using the EKBY wall shelf brackets mounted to the sides of the MARKOR bookcases as the "towers" the bridge shelf just sits on top. Simple!

We also added extra shelves to the bookcases from the "As Is" section to hold more DVD's and castors to the MARKOR Coffee Table so the KARLANDA footstool can live underneath.

~ Michael and Tim Granados, Edinburgh, Scotland

Custom-made bookshelf wall

Materials: Billy bookshelf

Description: When I moved in here I hade several old Billy shelves in a dark reddish colour that didn't match the new place. I also needed more shelves than I had for all my books.

With some help I dismantled the shelves, and sawed away the part where the backside is. Doing this shelves and sides got the same depth. Also painted them white.

We then screwed the sides to the wall and added the shelves, to get more parts I bought Billy tops. Some of the shelves are placed using the old holes, other are screwed into place.

All that is missing is a list at the top to make it look built in.

~ Jessica, Sundsvall, Sweden

IKEA shelf-evators

Materials: Capita legs, Ekby Viktor shelves, Ekby Joxa bracket rail

Description: I recently took a job teaching online in which I work from home, meaning I needed to convert part of my living/dining room into a home office. My biggest problems were accommodating my extensive library of academic books, and finding space for easily-accessed office supplies.

The 28-inch wide (non-IKEA) bookshelves near my dining table, which is now my primary workspace, were only two shelves high. After filling them with books and stacking another row on top, I realized there was still plenty of room above the top row of books if only I had free-standing shelves (or, as I came to think of them, "shelf-evators) to go over the top. I didn't want to screw anything into my walls; I wanted something to rest on top of the bookshelves. I asked the employees at IKEA who said they didn't have anything suitable, but had sometimes used Capita legs and single wall shelves to make something similar for a display.

Ekby Viktor shelves were the obvious choice, since their dimensions were very close to the dimensions of my existing shelves, and they were cheap, only $5.99 each. The problem was that Capita legs are a maximum of 8 inches tall, whereas many of my books were 10 or 11 inches tall. I decided to find something in the as-is bins that I could use to increase the height of the legs before adding the shelves on top.

I found the perfect thing - two Ekby Joxa rails, essentially strips of 1x1 already painted black, marked at $2.50 each. Add two packs of 8-inch Capita legs at $14 each, and some Gorilla wood glue from the hardware store, and I had my hack ready to go.

Click to read more>>

A mini shelf for books, toddler sized

Materials: Ribba Picture Ledge

Description: We are renting, so I couldn't attach something to the walls. And we didn't have the space for a big reading nook but I wanted our toddler to be able to see his books and have them be at his height.

I looked through the garage and found 2 IKEA Ribba photo ledges we were not using.

1. I used a scrap piece of wood I found in the garage, that just happened to be the perfect size. I chose this height because I had two shelves - you can choose to make it higher. Your local hardware store may have a scrap wood section which could be a good place to look. They will usually cut to size for a very small fee.

2. One shelf is flush with the bottom to serves as the base - it is free standing on the floor as we can not make holes in the plaster walls. The top shelf I measured by the size of the books it would be holding - works since toddler books are generally short.

3. Used a remnant piece of fabric to cover pine board. Used staple gun to fasten - first the long ends, than the short, pulling taught with each staple. The seam of the fabric I hid under the bottom shelf, so back is seemless. As for the edges {short sides} - cut fabric short, like you are wrapping a present and then fold into itself and staple. You will see the staples on those edges - you can cover with a pieces of ribbon if you choose.

4. With fabric on, I attached first the bottom shelf, using a level to make sure it was even. You may need to choose shorter screws than the hardware that the shelves come with, depending on the width of board you used. Then I attached the top shelf.

Just his height and perfect for 5-6 books, a toddler doesn't need much more.

See more of the toddler bookshelf.

~ Alex T

Ivar bookshelf

Materials: Ivar verticals, Ivar shelves, 6mm dowels, twine, varnish

Description:
When we left the last city we lived in and sold all of our Ikea furniture, I swore "No more pressboard. No more low-end Ikea. Next time, solid wood and antiques only."

Of course, within weeks of the move, I was back inside an Ikea, looking for inexpensive furniture to supplement what was already in our furnished flat - especially bookshelves. But, the furniture we get now will go into the place we eventually buy, and I was determined to stay away from Billy shelves. Nothing against them, really. Just... the pressboard thing. And, I wanted a different look for the office. Did I mention that we're broke from the move. Yeah, that too.

Anyway, we bought two of the tall Ivar verticles and eight shelves.

You may be aware that Ivar shelves have no sides. That means that to use them as bookshelves, you have to put bookends everywhere, resulting in lost space and potential book-spills. So, we needed something to hold the books in. Answer: 6mm diameter wood dowels, cut to 10 1/4" and positioned inside the holes for the shelf supports.

When we bought the shelves, I knew that they would need a cross-brace, but we didn't see the metal ones in the warehouse area of the Ikea and were too tired to keep looking. So, we needed crossbracing to prevent the shelves from racking. Answer: twine knotted and anchored at each back shelf support, crossing behind each shelf. The shelves are now surprisingly laterally stable.

Finally, Ivar shelves are unfinished. It's a look. A look perhaps best suited to dorm rooms, basements and garages. I decided to have some fun and use two colors of varnish, with a coat of gloss over top (I painted our BEKVAM Step Stool the same way).

These shelves will be great for books, and I really like their light, airy look.

~ Deidre Miller, Glasgow, Scotland

Custom wall of shelving...cheap!

Materials: Hyllis shelves, plywood, four band-aids

Description: Hyllis shelves are about $15 bucks a pop at Ikea but are rather flimsy and pretty short.

For my bedroom, I knew that I needed to house about 1200 books on a 20 foot long wall and I also wanted to house two flat screen TVs (long story why I needed two) that were at the correct height to view from the bed.

The Hyllis shelves will go together rather easily if you want to stack them. For my hack, I used the shelves and 'overlapped' the shelving units a bit in height. It is easy to overlap the legs (vertical supports) of Hyllis and and one to four shelves in height to it. You just have to put a screw through both vertical sections and into the shelf...the screw will connect everything together. I purchased slightly longer screws than the shelves come with to make the shelf connections at the front and the back sides, and used 1" long drywall screws to hold the shelves together side by side. I also sunk one screw per shelf unit into the rear wall of my bedroom to add some stability.

To house the TV brackets, I had two pieces of plywood cut down to size at the hardware store. I made them the same size as one shelf 'opening' and inserted them where the shelf should have been, using the same holes drilled in the vertical supports that the shelves use. The plywood goes from the bottom of one shelf to the top of where the shelf below it should be. Easy as can be; this gave me a solid base to install the mounts for the screens.

The vertical supports have one end drilled with two holes in it (Ikea anticipates you to attach the shelves to the wall using these holes, I think). I added an extra row of shelves purely for decoration along the top of the unit using the extra holes. I Turned these upside down so you see the smooth surface of a shelf 'top' in lieu of the crimped shelf bottom.

I was left with one section of shelves that was a little bit too big to fit into the wall. Hyllis shelves are thin enough you can actually cut them easily with tin snips if you need to modify the width. When you cut them across you loose a little bit of stability because the shelves are folded on all four edges and the fold makes them rigid and gives the shelf its thickness. I had to insert small pieces of 1" tall scrap wood cut the same depth as the shelf to stiffen the shelf front to back. I installed the wood using the existing holes on the vertical supports. Note: the cut shelves are sharp...hence bandages should be on hand! The cut shelves are shown in the picture with the urinal on the floor; you can barely see that they are modified.

~ Dave Hopkins, Chicago

Expedit random shelving hack

Materials: Expedit

Description: When my wife and I walked into a swanky expensive design shop here in Lund, Sweden there was a shelving unit that had random heights for each shelf. Very cool but way out of the reach of our budget. See pic on left.

(By the way, this was a year or so ago and only yesterday after the hack was done did a friend of mine take a look and tell me Ikea now do something similar! You can imagine my sigh but at least ours is 'bespoke'!).

Anyway, first off I always thought our original 5 unit Expedit just dominated the living room and so the seed of either replacing or chopping it up has been there for a long time.

In my opinion they look great if left in a room with lots of space not butted up against a wall in a small space.
So the main problem was all our picture albums were the wrong size for the original spaces and the various bits of cool items to display just invariably get stuff piled in with them.

Clutter, clutter,clutter! Unless you have some kind of design OCD. Essentially, not very practical.

So, I measured the size of the items I wanted to display, then disassembled the Expedit. I moved the whole lot outside and started cutting the horizontal sections- first with a circular saw then I switched to a jigsaw as the plastic on the shelves would chip and crack too much with the circular blade.

As with the inspiration picture I wanted something that felt random but still in some way structured.

These are the steps I did - sorry for the lack of pictures. It was a blinding hot day and I couldn't find the camera till late in the day...

1. The full final width was only 90cm to fit the chosen space in our living room, so this was the first cut on the top and bottom pieces.
2. I divided up the horizontal shelves into 5 piles and cut each pile in different widths. Some at 7cm, 9.5cm and others at 22.5cm and 25cm.
3. I laid the side section of the Expedit down flat on two stands attached the base section to form an L shape.
4. Then I started drilling holes for the dowling rods in the newly cut shelves and also in the side section.
5. Generous application of wood glue then set the vertical 9.5cm shelves in place. Though when finished will be horizontal.
6. Placed the long (once again will be vertical in the end) section on top of the shelves with wood glue and nailed each shelf in place.
7. Continued with the next level of shelves - this time the 25cm, followed by the 7cm and so on.
8. When the 5 levels were complete I put on the other large side piece and then the top section.
9. I screwed in some L brackets on the main inner corners to strengthen the whole frame.
10. Done and then with the help of my father-in-law, rotated the whole thing 90 degrees upright and voila! Job done and then lifted it into the front room.

My wife came home and was well happy!
WIN!!!

~ JC, Lund, Sweden

Two Ikea hacks in one corner

Materials: 20 PS Vallo watering cans, 5 Spontan magnetic boards

Description:
The ever-changing sculpture is a pile of 20 PS Vallo watering cans that can be stacked and connected in various configurations. It looks even better - like a snake - if you have a flat surface to stretch it out sideways. Cost: $1.99 X 20 =39.80.

The magazine rack consists of 5 Spontan magnetic boards screwed to the wall. There are some nice, modern magazine wall-racks out there but you'll have to spend about $300. Cost of this one: $7.99 X 5 =$39.95

~ Kathy, New Jersey

LACK of style

Materials: 2x LACK shelving units, 2x LACK small shelf, 1x LACK large shelf, 2x3 GRUNDTAL spots and dimmer

Description: The inspiration came from a trendy furniture store where they had this white furniture in front of this blue-green wall. As it was way over my budget, I had to improvise: enter the Ikea LACK shelves.

1. I used 2 LACK shelf units and 3 LACK shelves and a number of MDF panels.

2. Two green neon tubes were built inside the LACK shelf units as well as 6 GRUNDTAL spots on 2 dimmers.

3. All the cables go behind the MDF-panels, covered in white fake fur, which are placed ~2cm in front of the wall.

4. from 4mm MDF boards I made new fronts for the lack shelf units to make the 4 compartments somewhat look like old-school tv screens.

5. The top and sides of the shelf units are laminated with white plastic foil, so they look like they are made out of one solid piece.

Voila! I'm so happy with the result that I sometimes close the curtains just so I can put on the lights in my shelf. :)

See more of Bram's stylish Lack.

~ Bram D., Netherlands

The Kong is in

I can't forget my Donkey Kong days so this hack is especially heart warming. Casey pays homage to the game with some ingenious tilted Lack shelves.

"Here's a little project I came up with using some Lack shelves to add some flair to my game room. Using some tape, paint, and a lazy afternoon I put together a Donkey Kong homage to keep my old systems on. The ladders were made from 1/4" square wood and the barrels are beer cans painted."

Click to see more of Casey's Donkey Kong shelves.

Traby Traby on the wall

Diego and Monica "Zuzzù" has a simple wall hack for us.

"To create this simple but original composition we used the Traby system: 4 shelf units and 2 doors. We removed the door handles and plastered the holes. Then we painted the doors white. We also add the new Grip handles at the top the doors. As alternative drawers, we used two Branas Basket in the two centre shelves."

See more on their blog facciotuttodaseduto (I do everything seated) which is in Italian.