Friday, 8 December 2006

happy winners!

the results for the curbly "happy place" ikea contest are out! and the retro happy place (living room pic below) is top dog. congrats to veeeee who wins a $200 ikea gift cert.

can you spot the ikea? heh. sorry. bad habit. anyways, i adore the colour scheme - white and grey with bursts of warmth. also, the kidney coffee table ... way sexy. you know where i can get one?

bruno also announced a new contest - cheap is the new black. lol. how does he come up with titles like that? this round, post your under $20 diy projects and win skreened.com t-shirts.

Thursday, 7 December 2006

andrew's daybed turned banquette

hack no. 2 from andrew, as promised. he took parts of an ikea hemnes daybed (can't locate the link on ikea site) and turned it into a banquette! this has got to be the most ingenious hack i've received thus far.

stoic bunk bed turns into ...

... sexy seating for two! wow!

andrew says that "the frame is basically complete here. made it more sturdy than was necessary. head and foot board from the hemnes day bed were used to create the backs of the banquette.

i covered the frame by cutting up the main back piece from the hemnes daybed set. provides a nice uniform look. added some moulding around the bottom and covered the seats. some people have asked if the whole thing was bought in a kit!"

if only!

andrew completed the look with an ikea docksta table - after trimming the table top from 40" down to 30" to fit the space perfectly.

simply cozy.
love it. love it. love it.

click here to view andrew's flickr set and instructions.

Wednesday, 6 December 2006

andrew's tv bench turned floating desk

andrew sent me two amazing hacks which i can't wait to share with you. the first is this gorgeous floating desk, hacked from the ikea lack tv unit. when i first saw it i was amazed at how this...

... turned into this.

andrew says, "the steps to creating it were pretty simple. just basically took the two main pieces of the lack tv bench, cut them to size, attached them together and affixed them to the wall. from this angle you can really get a sense of the 'floating effect'. "

he then cut a hole at the back of the desk for the wires, wisely hid his cpu behind the drawers and mounted another lack shelf on the wall to complete the look.

it all comes together beautifully. simple and sleek.

while i don't recommend hacking up a new piece of lack tv bench (because you could just easily get 2 pieces of mdf to do the same), i love the idea of creatively re-purposing your old ikea furniture.

view andrew's flickr set and instructions here.

come back tomorrow for andrew's hemnes banquette hack.

Tuesday, 5 December 2006

create a picture rail for your workstation

when alyssa moved from an office cubicle to a home office, she found her workspace short on space for personal touches.

so, she used ikea deka (a curtain wire with clips) on her ikea jerker and fastened the ends with a set of 6mm - 1.0 X 50mm hex bolts.

then, added photos for instant warmth.

Monday, 4 December 2006

can you decipher this ikea word art?

"i need a hacker of a different sort...

for a wedding gift in 2000, we received a piece of ikea word art that all of our linguistic friends are unable to decode or even guess the language of...

it appears to be an actual language since it has a word root, prefix, and suffix, but i have to face the possibility it's simply art made to look like language...

however, i would really like to know what is hanging on my wall!

if it is written in some little-known language from the third world, and the artist knew that it would hanging in living rooms all over north america, i have a guess as to what it would say:

THESE IGNORANT WHITE PEOPLE DON'T HAVE A CLUE WHAT IS HANGING ON THEIR WALL!!!

the longer it hangs there unhacked, the more worried i become that i'm right!" - greg, surrey, bc.

dear greg
i would be concerned too about what i hang on my wall. but i'm as clueless as you.
so, please crack the code, some one?

Sunday, 3 December 2006

$1 is a fortune!

while i think it is better to give the whole sum than just a dollar to save the children and unicef to benefit the world�s children, if you do have to buy a soft toy this christmas, pick one from ikea. the big yellow and blue will be giving a dollar on each toy purchased to the funds.

to get the dollar in perspective:
- one dollar provides one child with a polio vaccination
- one dollar could provide a pen and note book for five children

this event will go on in 200 ikea stores worldwide between nov 18 and dec 24.

hey, perhaps you could even tell the kid receiving your toy that his or her gift has gone to help another boy or girl. it's a long shot but if it helps my nephews see christmas as more than gimme-gimme-gimme, it's money well spent.

Friday, 1 December 2006

simple way to hide ugly cables under your desk

barbex sent in another one of her smart hacks. though not totally an ikea hack, it's useful for people with a home office and who wants a nifty way to hide those hideous cables.

from the back of barbex's ikea desk, cables and wires dangle "like snakes for my feet to get caught in or for children to play a little pull-game ("look, mom explodes!"). and it looks ugly.

my solution is a wooden wall that stands up by itself because it is shaped like a Z and can be easily removed if necessary. it is cheap, black veneered chipboard that i had cut at the store. the black does not quite match the dark brown of the desk but the difference is not noticeable. the small part is just glued, the bigger side is screwed from the back so that you don't see the screws. it is not flush to the table top to make it easy to move but you don't see any gap because normally you don't sit on the floor and look under your desk all the time!

i think it took about five minutes to make and look how much nicer my messy desk looks now!"

simple yet what a difference! and i'm also totally loving the red and dark wood colour scheme.

barbex's other hack:
> barbex's smart tv recorder