Trofast changing table

No need to buy an expensive changing table. Just top a Trofast shelving unit with a changing table pad, just like how Beth and Shelli did theirs.

This is from Beth, who cut a piece of plywood 1" larger than the changing table pad. She wrapped the plywood with teal fleece and her husband secured the plywood to the Trofast with a couple of L brackets.

She says, "It ended up costing a bit more than a regular changing table but we'll be using it a lot longer. I like that they also sell shelves for the Trofast so that we can turn parts of this into a bookcase if we need to."

See more of her Trofast changing table here.

Shelli's pretty much the same but uses 4 Trofast units, a piece of plywood, fabric, a Trofast wall unit, a scrap piece of lumber and a changing pad.

See more of her Trofast changing table here.

Bathroom mirror, more than meets the eye

Gilito from Alcoi, Spain, has this absolutely fabulous mirror. It really got me. Me. Like. Robots. Too.

"I would like to submit my simple hack conformed by the Atran lockable cabinet in stainless steel, the mirror Frack, and two lamps that I got in another lamp store.

I like to collect metallic robots toys and this is the idea for the mirror in my bathroom. (and I am too lazy to setup a good electric installation of the principal lamp, that it is like the first day I bought the house)."

Sarah's chop and shove kitchen cart and circular sofa

Ah, I love these 2 hacks from Sarah. The first is a really cool cooking prep space and the second is a smart tweak of the circular bed into a cosy area.

She says, "I wanted to put a bowl in this Ikea kitchen cart (Forhoja) so I could chop things and shove them right into the prep bowl. Then, once you take out the bowl, you can shove the trash into the drawer underneath (lined with plastic) to bring to the trash. Originally I was going to install a whole trashcan beneath the hole, but I think this is less disgusting than having a festering pile of whatever under there.

First, we measured out where we wanted the bowl and how big the bowl was. We drilled screws through part of the table that would be discarded to hold it to the scrap board that was underneath and clamped the rest of the table to the underlying board. Next we routed completely through the top of the cutting board. Once that was complete (which was actually quite difficult and required a lot of fiddling with the bit, since the cutting board is quite thick), we did the second-order routing or the lip that insets the bowl so it is the same height as the cutting surface. Once that's done, all that's left is sanding!"



See more of Sarah's kitchen cart.

"A friend of mine moved half of her circular Ikea bed (Sandane) into our living room while she's subletting. For a while it was just sitting there together as a single unit, until another friend thought it would be funny to shift the pieces apart and have them like armrests while you sat between them on the floor. That got me to thinking that what would be even cooler would be to have a table there!

So dad and I threw one together this weekend. It's about the simplest possible table you could make. We got one pine board (10 feet by 1 foot by 1 inch) cut into 4 pieces (two 40 inch and two 20 inch) and connected them all up using corner brackets. The boards were slightly warped, so we tried to use the brackets in a way that would pull the pieces together, to moderately successful effect. Not the most elegant, but it should keep it together. Since 20 inches was slightly higher than I had been envisioning, we alternated which corner was on top, cutting out about an inch. Just needs some final sanding and stain and it'll be done."



See more of Sarah's half circular sofa.

A bouquet lamp

Nicoletta submits her daughter, Chiara's hack. An Ikea picture frame (Ribba?) and a light shade. She covered the base with expanded clay balls and inserted plastic flowers.

A massive built-in project

Adele and Jeremy spent a good 4 weekends to accomplished this massive media, wardrobe and storage combo. Time well spent!

"My husband worked on installing 'built-ins' for about 4 weekends in a row using the new 'black-brown' Pax wardrobes that Ikea has. He customized them to make them look like built-ins by cutting down two of the smaller closets to create symmetrical shelves on either side (so it didn't just look like a big hulking wall of closets).


I can't stand the little peg holes, so he turned around the pieces and drilled new permanent holes for the shelves (so that the line of holes is facing out where no one would see it). Then he cut down two doors so that our TV would be exposed (also to again add some decorative shelving around it so it wasn't just a wall of closets).

We found pulls that looked like our bedside table pulls and we also dyed the little plastic shelf holders black (for some reason they don't make a "black-brown" version of those little shelf holders so they stick out like a sore thumb.)

Now when people get a tour of the house they say 'Oh, were those built-ins here when you moved in?' We think we saved ourselves at LEAST 10K!"

Snug desk in laundry room

Hunter mixed and matched Ikea cabinets for a sweet work station. Too bad it's hidden away in the laundry room!

"We recently finished a laundry room desk area that found us combining a few stock Ikea cabinet pieces together (one for the height, one for the width) and found that an oversize cabinet door makes a swell desktop:



The most valuable thing (piece of advice wise) is the use of 2 cabinets to make one (width from one and height from the other) and the use of a 24x64in door for a desktop -- saved us literally a thousand dollars on silestone (and the Ikea Numerar countertops look great at a distance, but begin to unravel at closer inspection -- especially over time)."

Colour my kitchen!

Dawn redecorated her kitchen a couple months ago, with a clever idea for her kitchen walls.

She says, "Living in an apartment, I'm limited in what adjustments I can make, but I was bored with my kitchen's honey colored cabinets, dark green counter tops, and ivory walls. I wanted a color on the walls and to take advantage of some under cabinet storage space.

My solution?

Add color by sandwiching a piece of bright orange and red Fredrika fabric into a basic Clips frame, which fits neatly into the area between my cabinets and stove. (The areas to the side of the stove have long rectangular frames of the same style from a craft store.)

For an accessory rack I used a tension curtain rod (non-Ikea) wedged between the cabinets. A couple Bygel baskets and a Kalmar container hang perfectly from it to provide storage space. Voila! A similar plan on the opposite wall above the sink pulls the look together."