make your kid a chalkboard table

la apartment therapy recently featured a diy kid's chalkboard table which i thought was so practical yet so creative. i wished mom had thought of this while i was growing up. i would have gotten a lot less spanking from doodling on the wall.

anyways, my deprived childhood aside, with just a bucket of studio finishes chalkboard paint at $11.99 a bucket you can transform the ikea poang table into a kid artist friendly furniture. and since the poang comes in a set of 2, the van gogh wannabe's lil' sister can have her own canvas too. link.


effektiv on heels

i guess the ikea jerker desktop really does inspire hacks. ellen, proud owner of a jerker desktop, sent me her hack on the effektiv file cabinet, which accompanied her desktop.

she writes, "i wanted a file cabinet that was the same height as my jerker desktop rather than one that hid under the desk."

so she shod it in 8-inch capita pumps. then, not happy with the "officey" looks of the standard effektiv file cabinet handles, ellen replaced them with bitnik. a small change but i think they made quite a difference.

view more photos here.

related articles:
> the height adjustable jerker

wallpaper as wall art

while we're on the subject of art, chrille sent me an idea for the perennial "what to frame" question. he combined ikea ribba frames with the animal flowers wallpaper posters by swedish designer hanna werning. lovely lovely.



check out hanna's site for more gorgeous wallpaper. here are two of my favs.



flower is coming back into power.


ikea art event

i've never been a big buyer of ikea art (for that matter, any art) but a quick search on their website shows that they have beefed up this section considerably. which may explain the ikea art event, begining september 20, 2006.

"at ikea we are no strangers to the great and the good of the world of art. we have been selling motifs of many artists such as picasso and monet. ikea art event adds a new dimension to our offer and opens the door for you, our customers, to the world of exclusive current galleries. the artists presented in the ikea art event are individual contemporary artists working in sweden. this is a limited edition. why limited? well, why not - this is an event afterall. here today, gone tomorrow. this is definitely an event you don't want to miss!"

and it's only for you folks in chicago, paramus, philadelphia and conshohocken. via positive fanatics.

now, what next?

thanks to aunt beep who wrote me on thisnext and gave ikeahacker a nice shout out here, i now have a thisnext badge. yeah, i'm a sucker for widget-y bling-blings (scroll down the page and you'll not miss it).

you'll find my ikea favourites (hopefully, from other designers too, once i can get my mouse off the ikea site) on the badge and more on my thisnext page.

if you have time this weekend, do check out thisnext. it's like an online show-and-tell. loads of cool stuff, recommended by regular guys like you and me. it beats going to the mall. really. but be warned, it may downsize your wallet considerably.

ikea hack of the month - august

work has been ultra crazy and i've been slack posting our regular hack of the month. but anyways, it is finally done. july's vote is closed with simon's cheap but chic stair lighting receiving the lion share of the votes. congrats, simon!

now, on to august. we featured 3 pet hacks, the cat pod, no pooper cat litter but my favourite is the stolmen cat gym. if i were a cat, i'd be purring in contentment.



i also like claire's jazzed up chair and this simple (but probably not very lasting) post-it lamp shade. lastly, emily's gorgeous shoe storage, which earned her a mention in chicago apartment therapy. not many hacks get that honor. so what do you think? clicky clicky.



previous hack of the months:
> july
> june

jenni's west elm inspired box shelves

so, you've always wanted a box shelf like those sold at west elm but didn't want to fork out the moolah. jenni's hack might just do the trick for you then.


west elm's box shelves

"a few years ago ikea sold these wooden planters. the planter came in plain wood with a silver square tray beneath to hold in water. dimensions of the box were 6"l x 5"d x 5"h. i took the planters, primed them, put wall stucco on them for texture, and added L brackets to the wall. slot the hollow of the boxes onto the brackets and voila! instant box shelves. i think the ikea planters retailed for about $2.00 or less. the ones at west elm are 3 for $44.00. easy hack. now if they still sold those wooden planters."


her box shelves dotting the wall


close up of jenni's version

the wooden planter jenni used is no longer in production but i think the bjuron will work as well, since you don't need the silver tray anyways. the dimensions are about the same too.

nice work, jenni. and a really cute blue chair there too.

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