Bedroom series #5: Room dividers for your bedroom

Room dividers do double duty - carve out your spaces and provide storage. Am loving this room divider hack, which really puts the Pax wardrobe system in a new light.

Pax wardrobe room divider
Phyllis is one lucky woman with a handy hubby who installed this wardrobe/room divider for her.

The beaming wife says, "My husband installed a two parallel row of Pax wardrobes as a closet system/room divider in our bedroom. We had two challenges:
1. How to finish the back side of one row of the closet shells, and
2. How to install closet lighting in a stand alone closet system for a room with carpet. Hard wire would have been really expensive.

He finished the backs of the shells with Ikea laminate flooring and silver corner trim from Home Depot. (We still need to add some artwork on this 'wall'.)

(By the way, the window treatment is just heavy fusible non-woven interfacing from a fabric store like Jo-Ann�s. I cut the decorative circles at the top using pot lids and dishes and it attached each piece to the window with double stick tape. It's been up for about 3 years now.)

The Ikea lights were hooked up to an X-10 remote control lighting system that uses wireless to operate the lights. It enables me to turn on the lights from bed in the winter when it�s dark (I really like that feature.) Picture on the right is the wireless switch. The switch is not hard wired � it sticks to the shell with adhesive!

Here�s how the lighting set-up looks. The first picture below is the wall outlet for the closet lighting and in the next picture, you can see a white conduit going up the side to the top of the closet shell.

Below is the transmitter unit on top of the shell. There are also transformers for each fixture and a power strip.

My husband is not an electrician by any means � he�s just a handy guy and really had no problems installing this system."

A Bonde divider
Olivier does a divider too, but with the Bonde. He says, "Living in a (small) loft space turned out to be quite a challenge and at one point we needed to make a room divider to separate the dining space from the bedroom.

The white unit in the divider is a 4 door white Ikea Bonde unit we already had. The low unit is a 39" Akurum kitchen wall cabinet with a frosted glass door. The cube shelf is just some left over Jarpen shelves cut up and stained to match the rest.

Bedroom series #4: What to do with odd shaped rooms?

Uneven walls, sloping roof or living in an attic bedroom? We can't always have the perfect room but that doesn't mean it has to be any less. Ikea hackers have found ways to hide the ugliness and bring on the beauty.

Hide it behind Pax doors
Wim from Holland bought his house and had to deal with a low ceiling, making it tough for him to put in a standard wardrobe.

low ceiling problem

He says, "To solve this problem we could use sliding doors, but we didn't like that style. We went to Ikea to see what parts they had available and we liked the Pax series.

I fitted the interior with just with cheap plastic fittings in the measurements of the Pax front doors and drawers. To create enough distance between the doors I used 10cm (approx 4") wood strips.

and you can't tell the room has a low ceiling

Richard's attic bedroom storage with the Malm
He says, "I had a need for more storage in my attic bedroom, so I employed three Ikea Malm dressers, a few cabinet doors that matched my finish, and carved myself a nice built-in storage space.

I built a cavity with plywood (after I measured all my dressers and doors) in my knee walls. Then I insulated behind the cavity, and slid the dressers in place. I just hung a clothes rod behind the door cavities for shirts and such.

I finished with some Ikea mood lights above, and voila!

About the only part that wasn't from Ikea was the wood trim outlining it all, but that was recycled from a salvage yard.

Mary's attic bedroom storage with kitchen cabs
She tells me, "I was turning an attic into a bedroom; it had short walls because of the roof. So I bought four basic kitchen cabinets with flat white doors and wire pullout trays, and set them into the wall (may have to trim base to fit) and added 1/2" shoe molding.

More space, less filling! (In the picture, you can also see that the lights are from Ikea and the little bedside table has been repurposed as a bathroom cabinet.)

Sloping wall gets a new face
I love how Rapunzel turned this lemon into lemonade. The sloping wall is hidden behind this fabulous looking fabric headboard, surrounded by cabinets (akurum, I think).

This is how the room looked before, with 15-year old Pax wardrobes.

The wardrobes were removed but the problem with the wall is that it is warped backwards, with the bottom the wardrobes close to the wall but gaping at the top.

The view from the bed was less than pleasant, as you would be able to look directly into the wall gap. To solve this problem, Rapunzel added wall cabinets between the wardrobes to create a nook for the bed underneath.

Then, she mounted a panel of fabric by way of a square timber attached to the bottom of the wall cabinets. The fabric is attached to the timber by velcro, which I think is brilliant. The look of the room can be easily changed just by changing the fabric. Fantastic!

Bedroom series #3: Bedside tables to complete the look

Next are things that make your bedroom complete, like these bedside tables.

Rebecca's mirrored bedside table
Am absolutely loving this. Tres chic. Rebecca says, "We had wanted chic yet simple mirrored bedside tables and really didn't want to spend all the $ for them. We already had 1 Fornbro table

(can't find the link on Ikea's site) so I bought 1 more and took the tops to a local glass store. For $15/mirror, they custom-cut a new top. A little glue and - voila - modern yet simple mirrored bedside tables. And all for about $60.

See more of her mirrored table on her design blog.

Dave's nightstand
Dave tells me, "I needed a bedside table/nightstand and didn't see any that I liked. Instead, I took a Mikeal drawer unit, intended for a workspace, and built it without the wheels on the bottom or the large file-drawer (so only with the two drawers on the top). The result is a great looking and functional bedside table at the perfect height."

Bedroom series #2: Bedposts can be hacked too

Continuing our series on beds and bedrooms, check these out.

Bedpost hacks
Maxd made me laugh with these 2 bedpost hacks. We don't always have space for the things we want to put next to our beds - so why not use the bedposts instead?

Maxd says, "Here are two hacks for my Ikea bed (name of bed forgotten)! It ends up that the inside diameter of the bedpost is perfect for snugly fitting 1.5" abs pipes. I will probably expand this abs structure when I need more space, or get a cool idea."

The first is this hanging wardrobe. Jump out of bed and into clothes. How about that?

See flickr photos with notes.

The second is this ingenious use of pipes to connect his 5.1 speaker, alarm clock and lamp to the bedpost.

See Maxd's step by step instructions for making a pipe alarm clock.

Tanja's canopy bed
"I used half of a Index curtain rod, two Andrea tie-backs and the Gava finials and two ready made curtains from a different store to make a beautiful hang for my old irish metal/brass bed. I just painted the rod white, and stuck it between the knots of the Andrea tie-backs, to hold them.

The lamp stand was a heritage piece from my grandmother, but the shade was awful so I got a new one from Ikea and mounted it on the old brass stand (I don't remember the name I think it's no longer produced). The little drawer beside the bed was in natural wood when I found it at a flea market. I painted it white, and put new handles from Ikea on it (the old ones were rusty and didn't look good) to fit the interior of my bedroom."

Hopen underbed storage

Florence and Tim found a simple solution for underbed storage.

"The Talbo 32" drawers with casters fit perfectly under the Hopen bed. No adjustments, no hacks. The freestanding kitchen drawers perfectly complement the Hopen. Four 32" drawers provide plenty of extra storage space for bedding and extras. We put this set together in 2005 and I haven't seen the Talbo collection recently but it definitely works for us."

Bedroom series #1: Kid's bedroom is the place to play with ideas

I did headboards a while ago, so a series on beds and bedrooms seem to be best next step. To kick off this series are hacks and ideas for children's bedrooms and nurseries. They are always so fun to do and the place where your creativity can go wild. Don't forget to check out tips from the mothership too. Enjoy!

Stack up a kid's bed for storage
Michael stacks three old Ikea storage units (discontinued), arranged with two at one end backed on to each other, and one at the other end to create a kid's bed, with storage below.

He says, "I just took the top of one of Ikea's cheap bunkbeds and via a few extra batons and so on, attached it on top of the storage units. Then the ladder was created from bits of the bunkbed that were left over and since these weren't quite long enough (for some reason!?) I added a mini shelf/stand at the bottom.

See more of Michael's kids bunk bed with storage.

A girly girl bedroom
Dean solves the problem of a creaky tromso bed and turned it into a girly bed for his princess.

the original Tromso

He says, "The Tromso bed that we bought for our daughter was great, but after a year, noise from moving around bothered her. She wanted no noise and a princess bed.

1. We took off the ladder and turned it over.
2. We flipped over all of the wire mesh panels to give even support to the mattress.
3. We had a trundle bed and we fitted it under the Tromso upside down. We took off the back bar that was not lined up with the other two. We also took off the front boarder bars that were used to hold the bed in place (that was now upside down and where you climbed into the bed). Traced the middle hole of the boarder bar onto the back brace bar. This then was put where the front boarder bar was. This gave the bed stability again.

4. Screwed screws now on top of each post and strung wire across. On this wire we hung up curtains to create the 'princess' effect.

Put the trundle bed underneath, and mattress on top. Noiseless and very girly.

Kura bed with chalkboard ends
Luke got a Kura bed for his young daughter Letty. However he hated the blue panels on it. So he flipped the panels the other way round so the white sides were facing out and then used aerosol chalkboard paint to turn the tall end into a chalkboard for her.


Add fun with fabrics
Ana used a Hokus quilt cover to theme her daughter's nursery. She says, "Since I didn't like the Hokus curtains that matched the set, I bought a second quilt and sewed sections of it on the bottom of my own curtains.

I also cut strips of the little lines that divide each section and sewed it along the bottom of a white crib skirt from Pottery Barn Kids.

To integrate the theme into other parts of the bedroom, I cut four individual 'characters' from the extra quilt and put them on photo frames. Cute and inexpensive!


A platform crib
Taliesan and a friend just finished the attached project.

Taliesan says, "I, like the maker of the other crib you have listed, wanted to have a more contemporary design without having to pay the huge price. so we took the Gulliver crib, cut off the legs and a bit of the ends to make the entire bottom level and built a new base for it. The base is a routered piece of 10-ply birch cut to have a 3 inch overhang. The base has a 4" skirt that's tucked 6" back from the edge of the platform. The legs are 4" tall. I wanted it to feel like the oeuf crib (pic, right) but with a little more detail.

All we did on the change table was replace the drawer fronts on a 3-drawer Hemnes dresser with the same birch and add new hardware. I also built a tray to hold the change mat on top of the dresser.


And lastly, some eye candy
It's only painting, but Ricardo and his wife did a fabulous job in their baby bedroom. In the photos you can see a Sniglar crib, a Sniglar changing table and a Rast drawer chest.



Related posts:
~ previous hacks for children