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

a train in your coffee table

steffen builds a model train inside his ikea coffee table, vinninga.

a charging station to organise your gadgets

we have too many gadgets, don't we? here's a charging station from jamie to help tame those wires.

jaime writes, "i have been looking for something to keep all my chargers and devices organized and i haven't found anything that i could afford and still pay back my student loans! so i started looking at diy ideas for charging stations. these required lots of parts and tools that i just don't have.

on one visit to my neighborhood ikea, i purchased a mackis storage rack for my crafting space. i got to thinking that i could hack it and turn it into what i needed, with very few tools or extra parts.

in the end, i made the station in two hours while watching tv. i was able to use tools i had around. the only cost was the mackis rack.

see jamie's charging station instructions on her myspace blog or more photos on flickr.

salvage an old fjord dresser

after fixing his daughter's ikea fjord dresser drawers (discontinued) for the umpteenth time, mike gives up and decides to turn it into shelving.

he says, "we removed all the drawers and took the back off. then, we used the back as the bottom shelf. we hammered in some 1 by 2's to the inside of the side panels to hold another shelf. then, we purchased cloth bins to hold our daughter's clothes. our daughter emily picked out the colors."

double up your work space

dan and erin needed to fill their guest room / office with some thing that...
1) wasn't expensive and
2) looked good

so with a tape measure in hand, they spent 4 hours at the college park, maryland ikea and left with 2 vika amon 4' 11" table tops, 4 vika curry legs, 1 malm 2-drawer chest, and 1 set of 6" capita legs.

and here's what they constructed.

"we put the two vika table tops end to end, and installed the vika curry legs at the furthest opposite ends. two capita 6" legs split the middle seam, and sit on top of the malm chest. the chest supports the seam at the middle, and creates a storage space underneath.

i also installed the summera pull-out keyboard tray, but the vika tops are so hollow that it's already starting to strip out. in all, we spent $120, and the desk really has helped our new office/guest room.

we plan on finishing off the room with a 5' vika amon table top used as a headboard, and hanging the lack shelves above the desk area horizontally for more mementos and storage."

Updated! February 25, 2009
Reinforced double table
Beth was looking for an idea on how to enlarge her current desk without spending too much and gave her better access to her file drawer when she came across the hack above. But after reading the comments, was worried about having enough support along the seam. This is her solution.

She says, "My solution was to add 2 cheap legs to support the back, and screw the Capita legs into a 3/4" thick slab of plywood. This gave a lot of support to the desktop, and the plywood thickness made up the difference between the end of the leg and the desktop (legs were 12" long at the fully adjusted length and I had more space than that, but the next size up would've been too long). I then ironed on some edge banding to cover the front of the plywood slab to finish it off!

Products used:

- 2 Capita 4" legs

- 2 Vika Amon desk tops

- 1 Erik Drawer unit

- 4 Vika Fintorp 70cm legs

- 2 Vika Curry Silver legs

Materials Needed:

- 1 12x16" plywood slab (3/4" thickness)

- 1 roll Black/Brown edge banding (bought from Home Depot for Mills Pride Cabinets)

- screws

ikeahacker is ...

TWO!

woohoo! roll out the swedish meatballs.

thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking around and supporting the site. seriously. your hacks, comments and emails have kept me going. please do forgive me if i have been slow in replying your mails or posting your hacks. the last few months have been challenging for me as i finally said goodbye to life in the agency.

it is a dream come true to be able to work from home. and this site has partly given me the freedom to blog and freelance full time. while the dream is sweet, living it out is another thing altogether. i am an absolute newbie at freelancing and it has been a steep walk up the learning curve these last 3 months.

but i am not complaining - nothing beats waking up and strolling 5 steps to my 'office'. i do plan to start a new blog. it will be very different from ikeahacker and a lot of more personal, as i take stock of the lessons, trials and joys of working as a freelancer. hope to get it up by end july, if i don't get too lazy sitting around in my jammies watching tv.

but what i am really interested to know after 2 years of running this site is ... what do you think i can do to make ikeahacker better?

share your thoughts on one or all of the following:
> i think it would be great if i see more hacks on ...
> ikeahacker can help me hack better if ...
> this site will really rock if ...

click on the comment link and let me hear ya. all ideas welcome, fire away.

malm room divider

william does a great job with 2 malm chests as room dividers and storage space. am loving the back design.

"i wanted something wider that could also be used to separate living spaces. i screwed two malm 3-drawer chests together side by side, added some support so i could add elevator legs and make the chests appear to 'float' a bit off the floor. to tie it together visually i got a 1/2" piece of tempered glass that was painted white for the top.

the malm does not have an attractive back so i added a solid panel to it. i started with an organic design i made in adobe illustrator, and then had the design routed out of 3/4" mdf with a cnc router. after having it finished with a high gloss paint, it was simply attached on the inside of the 2 connected malm chests."