what's the secret?
van says, "actually, everything is mounted underneath using mdf pegboard and some wire.
"i bought two of these cube frames (they had a cushion on top) without the cover. then i bought some 1 inch foam, cut it to size and covered all the 4 sides with it, using spray glue. then i bought this great zebra print sort of soft and fuzzy fabric and made a tight cover, pulled it on, and stapled it to the underside for a quick upholstery job. and now we have two zebra cubes that are great for extra seating, or for our kid to practice walking or chewing on!"
the LED light box is a great way to make artwork a very bright focal point of your room. plus, it usually gets the, 'how'd you do that?' comment from anyone who sees it."
all sort of questions are popping up at the ikeahacker forums. like these ...
"i've used a cd-rack from ikea (i don't know the name of it). i wanted to use the existing drilled holes in my wall so i used a piece of steelband to fasten the cd rack to the wall (and that's also why the left steelband is much longer than the right). the orginal cd-rack parts are used except for the top steel rod, which i removed to allow placement of the toilet rolls."
mike writes, "i like the aesthetic of the benjamin stool, but it lacks the padding necessary to be comfortable as a foot stool for any length of time, so i made a cushion. essentially, it's a pillow in a custom made pillow case with heavy duty snaps on the short ends. the cushion wraps around the top of the benjamin and snaps together on bottom side. it's not the most perfect upholstery job, but it's comfortable, and it can be easily washed."
even though ikea sells ponchos (i never knew this, did you?-jules), this version is a much cheaper solution. the polarvide is only $3.99. mom has them in several colors!" link to jennie's flickr.
adding to marc's idea, if you choose not to use fabric, you can also try ikea's curtain panels to divide a room. may not be as cheap, but they are pretty good looking.
also, kim of girlrobot, a geeky girl site, contacted me a few days ago for an email interview. it's my first! and it was fun thinking back and seeing how ikeahacker has taken shape in 9 months. almost 200 hacks and counting! thank you for sending your hacks in. you're what makes this site happen. read the interview on girlrobot.
2. stow a media player like how rick johnson did it 
"i have a computer that i was using for a media player and it looked really dumb beside the tv. i decided to stuff the computer into the footstool. now the computer doesn't look totally out of place in the room and a dvd drive in the side of the footstool is a good conversation starter.
the real hack though was building a custom shelving unit for under our stairs. ours is a hundred year old house that has a quirky and oddly shaped under stair cupboard. standard shelves just wouldn't fit so the hubby designed shelves to fit on the computer and then assembled them out of the various bits of wood. we wanted shelves to make room for our recycling bin and boxes for different household chores like painting or tiling. we used cardboard fruit boxes to organize that and they work like sliding drawers that we can take out and bring to the project. In the far back, we have a wide low shelf where we store little used items. it's amazing what �4 got us!
some tips from the projects - the nice thing about these bits and pieces is that there is usually a nice finished side to the pieces. as you can see from one of the pics, we got one of the shelves turned around but it was too late in the process and not that important aestetically. the other thing we've found from the pressed board stuff is that it makes a huge mess when you cut it so be prepared. when drilling, be sure to start from the 'right' side as it will tend to splinter if you come from the back and mess up your pretty side. but otherwise, it really works similarly to regular wood and can be used for lots of things!"
"recently we took down some shelving we had in between two ivar (ikea) units and replaced it with a band of patterned fabric (bettina) we liked. this ended up being a great way to accent the room. my wife subsequently used the same fabric to cover two pillows on our couch (adjacent these units) which helps tie the whole thing together. we hemmed the edges, and tacked the top and bottom to the horizontal rods (in our case 1x2 pine) with a staple gun. the fabric cost $10.00 for 2 yards from ikea, which was enough for the hanging and the pillows. none of this helps us clean up our living room when we're sleepless from a brand new second baby, but it does keep things lookin nice!" link.
first, i spray painted everything blue. then i sponge painted on a bit of purple. then the golden castles and the freehand artwork. i then put on a few coats of polyacrylic, but i wasn't very happy with the protection level on the recessed pieces as the original surface i painted on was that slick white pressboard and i worried it would scratch. i bought some acrylic epoxy and finished it up.
these photos don't capture the depth of the different colors so well, but the general idea comes through."
images ... a great book of his is ONLY $220.00. so, in the spirit of... 'i know another way to get his work' ... i took an image from a reproduction on a set of art cards from ikea, went to a digital imaging house in chicago, had a 'high end' scan done, then, had them photoshop in a bit of a sepia, 'old-ified' quality to the image, and had it printed on a super-duper high end printer for about $25.00 for the 3 images. took 'em to get matted - had a cabinet maker make the frames, took em back to a frameshop for archival framing - and the rest, as they say is history.
lot of work, you say... yes, but if you compare the cost of purchasing one of his prints (always too small for my liking, too!) and the way i was able to get what I wanted ... the end result is priceless!"
the bench without the top
completed bench with pronomen countertop
