Engan Room

Materials: Engan bed frame, 1 1/4" angle iron, 1/4" 20 bolts, nuts, and washers, chop saw, drill press, TIG welder, hand saw.

Description: This brings new meaning to the term bedroom. A rather small room for a queen sized bed at 92"x81", 80" if you include base boards. The product dimensions are 61 3/4"x81 1/2". The idea was to take off one of the either headers or footers to alleviate the length needed to fit inside the space. It became a bit more than that later on in the process.

It begins with dismantling the footer from the two side lengths. Including the midbeam bracket. This will leave the bed in disuse until you can cut and weld you angle iron. You can place the slates and the midbeam aside.
You will now need access to a metal shop to cut, weld and fabricate the 'sub-frame' as I'll call it.
Angle iron lengths as follows.
3 - 8"
1 - 61 7/8"
2 - 5"
2 - approx. 4"

Cut the 2 5" at a 45 degree angle at one end. Make sure you cut the correct side.

One for the right and one for the left.

Cut the 61 7/8" at a 45 degree angle at each end.

Join the 5" lengths to the 61 7/8" length together via a welder.

Join the 3 8" lengths to the welded long section of the subframe. Space the 3 out across the length. Two for each end, and the last for the middle. These will hold the bed up just fine.

Drill a 1/4" hole through the two lengths of the 4" iron. These holes will be placed 1/2 inch from the top and from the left or right respectively.

Weld these length to the subframe. Place the foot of the 'L' that makes up the shape of angle iron toward you. This is where we are going to attach the midbeam bracket soon.

I had to manually saw off an inch of the Engan frame to accommodate the room's dimensions. You may not have to.

Place the midbeam bracket onto the subframe. Fasten with 1/4' 20 bolts, nuts, and washers.

Now the subframe will act just like the original.

Re-assemble the Engan frame, skipping a few of the footer instructions because we dont have to use that hardware anymore.

~ Colin Butgereit, Brooklyn, NYC, USA

Covered ENGAN

Materials: Fabric and tape

Description: I needed a new, simple bed. I liked ENGAN's shape but I hate the dark wood, I like bright colours. So I covered with some fabric! (I honestly just clued it to the wood using double sided tape)

Then, my previously owned mattress was too small because IKEA does weird sized beds! So I bought some foam, and as I already stablished, can't sew, I made that a cover with some fabric and hem tape!

In the picture also the now-discontinued Manger headboard from IKEA (which I bought when it came and it's being used as a headboard for the first time since!)

~ Julia, London, UK

Engan a la mode

Materials: Engan chest of drawers, scrap wood, spray wall texture, paint

Description: We have a hall closet that we had begun repurposing as some sort of display area, but the project hung in limbo for almost a year. As belongings piled up, we wanted to compromise by putting some storage unit in place while still keeping the upper part (lit by a custom dual spot/ambient light setup) available for display. To keep it simple, we went with an IKEA transplant strategy. The Engan caught my wife's eye since the handles look like old Chinese currency. It also resembles some more modern commodities.

The Engan is just under 31" wide, pretty close to the width of a typical closet opening (32-32.5"), so giving it a "built-in" look is straightforward. I picked up a 2x4 and some 5/8" and 1/4" strapping from the Home Depot "scrap" bin, and with the help of a few wood shingles it was about an hour's work to block it into place.

I used quick-drying spackle to smooth out the joints and after a quick coat of primer, I applied the quintessential southern California "orange peel" finish using the convenient spray-can that Home Depot sells (I used to mix my own!).

After the texture dried, I put two coats of wall-paint over the unit and neighboring sections of wall. The drawer fronts were primed, textured, and painted elsewhere. Overall this part of the project took about 6 hours, including downtime while the paint and textures were drying.

~ Matt and Sissi, San Diego

Elegant Engan catbox

Materials: Engan 2 drawer 2 door, catbox, motion sensitive light

Description: I followed the basic instructions but skipped the part about the drawers instead opting to use one of the side panels from a drawer to join the two drawer fronts together. Once attached using the 2 provided L bracket that were supplied + 1 other larger one I had bought at Ikea as well I mounted the drawer fronts to the unit.

With all parts together I put the back on but only nailed the top part down to the middle then used a jig saw to trim off the bottom half, then jigged out the cat door oh so very carefully.

The entry hole is protected around the edges with Ikea cable tube held on with the remaining nails from the backing. The bottom where the box is sitting on is one of the drawer bottoms.

Last steps were to add in a motion sensitive light and I added 2 more L brackets with another drawer side to act as a brace so the box won't shift when in use. The concern was the cat could potentially trap himself in side.

~ mcquarris