Zigging the zag in Lack

Hans unzigs the zags in the Lack shelf for a neat bookcase.

He says, "I've felt for a long time that I liked the Lack Zigzag shelf though I thought it took up way too much wall space so I wanted to remake it and take advantage of the storage space it provided though without using so much space. I had made several drawings on ideas on how to change it before I bought it and I thought the hack would be easy, it wasn't. The shelf is made so that it can only be assembled in one way thus creating that zigzag-form.

To alter that I had to use a power drill to drill thru the holes for the wooden plugs and the screws so that I could alter the design. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away and drilled thru way more holes than I needed.

Fitting my new design in a straight manner to the wall turned out to be very difficult though. The original shelf's fittings are placed in a row but my alterations of the shelf placed the fittings in a much more chaotic pattern that was hard to get lined up correctly. My first try to get the holes for the fittings in the right places was made in this fashion.

 The idea was that I could make markings on the wall with the pencils, however it was way to heavy to hold up straight and in the same time make good markings on the wall i.e. it didn't work very well, my next idea worked better which leads me to this picture.

I was in luck that I had this very special screwdriver, otherwise I don't know what I would have done. Placing the shelf close to the corner was good in an artistic way but maybe not so good in a practical way. Anyways here's what it looks like when it was finished. I'm very pleased with the result and it fits nicely next to my desk."

It's never too Lade to be a winner

K.Gragera turns a hand-me-down Lade Bed into a stand, fit for champions.



She says, "This Lade Bed had been passed down from one friend to another friend to another friend. Finally it came to rest and my friend decided to recycle the wood and create an award stand for a Jiu-Jitsu Tournament
he was hosting.

The wood was sawed into different heights for the placements. Sheets of plywood were cut and screwed onto the frame. The top part was spray painted black. The graphic on the front was printed on very large
paper and mounted to the stand. 3 friends stood together on each placement to test if the plywood would hold the weight of 3 people.

This award stand was used at the Bay Area Open Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Tournament in Berkeley, CA. It withstood the weights of very large muscular men.

Hackeas: A little embellishment goes a long way

Desk and wall art
Jennifer needed a desk for her guest room, but had little space. She says, "I saw the Norbo wall mounted table at Ikea and knew I could do something with it. I was on a very tight budget and decided to spend my money on other items. The next time I went to Ikea. I found the same desk (missing one screw) for 1/3 the price in the As-is section (my favorite). I painted it in my kooky way and then mounted it to the wall."



See more here.

Paper napkin it

Lydia hacks lots of these chests and frames as presents. She says, "I've improved the looks of some of the mini-chests with the effective paper napkin technique. I've done many of them, some with asparagus, strawberries and gardening utensils. I use the latter to keep my secateurs, seeds, string and other small things I need for gardening. The nice old-fashioned look comes from applying two layers of paint with crackle glaze in-between.

My golden angel key cabinet which has been refurbished with the same method.


Then there are some pictures of my object frames. Since I'm absolutely fond of lighthouses it suggested itself that I created some lighthouse sceneries, and I think I was quite successful. I simply glued the pictures (taken from old calendars) into the frames as a background and used sand, sea shells, seaweed, etc. to decorate the foreground.



Dress up your wardrobe too
Heidi jazzes up the plastic panels on the Aneboda drawers and wardrobe. She says, "I just used Japanese paper/tissue paper and gift wrapping paper to decorate my Aneboda drawers and wardrobes and make their 'sterile' look into something more fitting to my bedroom.

This guitar has got the chops

Zach does it again, with Spar butcher block, that only costs $29.99 for a 19" slab. The block sat in his stockpile for 2 years till he came across a quote from Brad Paisley. He said "a Tele(caster) is nothing more than a cutting board, a baseball bat and strings". And the next Ikea Z guitar made the cut.





Thanks LeonHunter!

See more of Zach's butcher block guitar.
See his previous guitar made from an Ikea table top.

Closet computer desk

Leenya fits her office into an armoir. Close the door and the clutter disappears.



She says, "It involves the Leksvik armoir that my husband and I tailored into a computer 'office'. It provides more flexibility than the Alve Computer Desk and it works with our decoration." Two other boards were fitted in to provide additional storage and space for a printer. A rolling computer keyboard shelf is attached underneath the main shelf.



See Leenya's computer desk in a wardrobe.

Suit your sofa right: A step-by-step sofa re-upholstery

Over at Eddie Ross', they've posted an amazing step by step re-upholstery of a Manstad sofa. The chocolate twill cover is from the Slipcover shop and tucked using only a staple gun and an Exacto knife. The right suit really does make the sofa.



See more of the slipcover re-upholstery.

Airstream Ikea hacking

I'm loving what Deb did to cover the airstream windows. 

She says, "My Ikea hack is for an 1970 Airstream trailer that I found on craigslist and revamped into my girly-space. I took 'Gyllen Wall Panels' (not found on website) which are supposed to be used as closet doors and wall dividers, and I chopped them right down making them into blinds for the airstream windows. Airstream windows are tough to find proper window coverings for ... as the walls are curved (without paying a fortune for custom blinds). So these worked great, are pretty, super easy to redecorate when I'm in the mood to change colours and cheap too!"

See how pretty my windows are now!

Tip: Parallel mounting for a Deka wire

Mark solves the problem of mounting the Deka curtain wire parallel to the wall.

He says, "My daughter has lots of rosettes, from horse shows, that she likes to display in her bedroom. In the past my wife has hung ribbon on the wall using "drawing pins", but this looks untidy and leaves holes in the wall/coving. After redecorating her room I had the bright idea of using Deka curtain wire and duly bought some, a snip at �2.79 each. However when I went to fit them I spotted a fatal flaw in my plan, or lack of plan.

The Deka wire is designed to go between two walls, and (a) the wire was too short for the room and (b) I didn't want the wire across the full width of the room. What I needed was to mount the end pieces parallel with the room. Alternatively I guess I could use some Dignitet corner pieces.

The solution was to use some small brackets to mount the Deka end pieces on, ultimately this could be disguised using some wood etc. Using these brackets gives all the advantages of the Deka hardware but with the added flexibility of being able to adjust the length. Obviously this doesn't just work for hanging rosettes but for anything you might want to hang from a Deka wire, even curtains."

Shoe box speakers

Mike hacks this handsome set of speakers from a shoe cabinet. Sounds like a great way to turn waste into wonderful.

He says, "I had no further use for the Ikea shoe cupboard (name unknown) but really liked the birch veneered panels and realised that they would make a great match with my Hi-Fi unit and Benno CD/DVD storage. I therefore decided to make a pair of speakers using Fostex FE83e units , and the Fostex DBR design. I wanted to preserve the panels as untrimmed as possible to save the nice veneered edges, so needed to do a little work with a spreadsheet to calculate revised sizes, retaining the overall design volumes. Some work with a saw and glue, and some carpet underlay, yielded the pictured speakers. You can see that they match the colour and style of my other Ikea items very well - and they sound great, especially now they are powered by a Sonic Impact T amp."

***

Can I hack the Merlion?
Last week I had a marvellous time meeting a hacker, Luthien. It's strange that it took me almost 3 years to finally meet a hacker face to face. We had teh tarik (pulled tea), great conversation, a leisurely stroll through Ikea pointing out stuff that are potential hacks, rounding it up with hotdogs and ice-cream. I had so much fun and am kinda itching to meet more hackers, to make up for lost time. Hah!

So ... my next stop is the Lion City. This is especially going out to all you hackers (and non-hackers. It's ok, I still love you) lurking in Singapore. I'm going to be in your city from Tuesday (26th) for a week and if you're game to come up for air, shoot me a mail at ikeahacker (at) gmail (dot) com. And yeah, what else to do ah, besides Orchard Road and the usual tourist traps?

Merlion photo by Wolfgang Sladkowski

Related hacks:
- Salad bowl speakers
- Sexy speaker legs
- Dudero speaker stand
- PS Cart speakers

Anyone who sews will love this ironing board

If you ever need to iron large pieces of fabric like curtains, you'll love Katie Croteau's ironing board. It's hacked from the Norden table, with a cover/pad over it.




See more here.

Shine a spotlight on this Tertial ceiling lamp

A year ago I received a three legged lamp from Jason. Aur�lien ups it a notch with 6 lamps. And yeah, it's way cooler.

The base uses a Blanda Blank with 6 Tertial lamps screwed onto its rim. The hard bit is the wiring and making sure everything lights up as it should.

See more photos of the Tertial ceiling lamp.

Project cat runway

Got sexy feline who wants to strut its stuff? Give it a runway then. Let Liz and Jarod show you how.

"My partner and I created a rental-friendly (i.e. no holes in walls) cat run using 2 Ikea Expedit shelving units." The shelves form the base for the run, which is made from a 2.8m x 0.4m chipboard. The run is carpeted for kitty to sink its claws into. A little ledge was also added to the side of the shelving unit, so that kitty can get up there.




See more of the cat run.

Put a cat litter box at the entryway?

The first thing that comes to mind - "No way!" Kitty's poo-poo palace is not the best thing to greet you the moment you open the door and ... what about the smell? But as we see, hackers have found a way to cleverly disguise litter boxes. Here are two, that can make an entrance to any landing space.

Sleek cat litter and bench
Romina comes up with a winning cat box. It's so simple yet looks great. Better yet, it doubles up as a bench.

She says, "Living in a Chicago high rise has its problems when it comes to cats and their litter box. There is just no good place to keep it! When you are two architects who really have an eye for the modern and chic, you really don't want a kitty litter box in your closet, or bathroom. We came up with solution to hide the cat box: made from the Besta shelf/height extension units and the Besta Holmbo door. We added the Capita legs and inset them for a modern look.

It sits in our entry foyer and serves as a bench for sitting and putting on your shoes, a mail area, and kitty litter hide out. The cats love it for its privacy and we love it because no one knows what this piece hides! The only thing we did was cut the middle vertical panel in half to allow a hole for the cats to sneak through. We added some contact paper to the inside to protect the particle board from the cats scratching it and for easy cleaning.





Kitty kitty litter box
Aur�lien does hers with a Norrebo storage bench. She added a cute "cat" entrance to the side and for the front, used only the front panel of the pull-out drawer. The panel is held in place with magnets. Easily removable for cleaning.

See more of Aurelien's kitty litter box.

Related hacks:
- Flaren stealth litter box
- Quick and easy cat litter box
- Snack cat litter boxes
- Compact kitty box
- No pooper cat litter
- More pet hacks