Lack coffee table gets a mosaic top

Julie spruces up an old Lack coffee table with a mosaic.

She says, "It was pretty simple, actually. I got my dad to make a wood cover (pine sides + mdf base) to slide over top of the original table. I think he made it about 1mm bigger on each side, so it fit perfectly and wasn't too tight. There were 2 reasons for making the wood bit to slide over top: (1) it gave me a lip that would hold the grout in and leave a nice clean finish with even edges and (2) the table lived in Toronto and I lived in Kitchener, so I needed a way to work on the mosaic and then take the finished product to Toronto to surprise my partner (this was a gift). After varnishing the wooden top, I went to work on the mosaic and many, many hours later...voila! I had a lovely 'mosaicked' table."



Click for more of Julie's mosaic table.

Related hacks:
- Classy glass mosaic table
- Mosaic side table
- Mosaic 'Tiffany' table lamp

Spinning version inspired by CB2's Arch Magazine Rack

Emily was inspired by the Arch Magazine Rack from CB2 and comes up with her version of it.

She says, "I used a Snudda Lazy Susan and 1/8" metal rods from Home Depot. I dug out my trigonometry skills to measure off chords around the lazy Susan, then drilled holes and inserted the bent rods. I bent the rods around the metal pole that supports our deck - I bought an extra rod to practice the bending - it took a couple tries to come up with a repeatable process. The Arch Magazine Rack is 9" in diameter. The Snudda version is 15", and it spins!"

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Josh's restaurant wall art

These are some crafty pieces from Josh, a new hacker, who hacks items purchased from the As-is section. Josh is an artist in Wilmington, DE and the hacks below can be seen at Ol� Tapas Lounge, located in Newark, DE.

He says, "I used these pieces to create an entire restaurant full of artwork. I think I might be on to something. This piece is from the Komplement multi-use hanger.

Drawer fronts recycled from Akurum drawers.

The bull face was recycled from a desktop (Vika Manne).



The canvases were painted over from Tulip paintings purchased on clearance at Ikea.



And the Ole' panel was recycled from a remnant of a book shelf.

More of Josh's artwork can be seen at here.

A bright spark for the Gestalta

John comes up with an ingenious use for the Gestalta figurine. Lovely!

He says, "I saw the Gestalta at Ikea a few weeks ago and wanted to get one, but the wife said 'There's no use for it!' So I came up with a 'use' for it. Got a couple of 3W Luxeon LEDs, took the Gestalta apart and wired it up through the limps. I used a Basisk table lamp base, left over from a friend's other project, to hide the electronic stuff."

Liatorp-Billy fusion book cases

Erik previously gave us a discreet computer cabinet. He does it again with this handsome all black set-up. And what's a flavasoft?

He says, "Ikea is one of my favorite places, being a Swede, it's one of the few places to grab a flavasoft for a decent price. I needed an inexpensive way to hopefully make my office look nice, clean and a little bit stylish.


I liked the look of the White Liatorp book cases but they did not come in black-brown and are also very expensive compared to the Billy system. I then essentially mated some As-is Liatorp doors to a Billy, creating the look of the Liatorp for an inexpensive price.

I found all of the following in the As-is Section, but this could be assembled with raw components as well. The Liatorp glass doors are much more elegant than the traditional Billy doors, I found these for $10 each in the As-is section. They come in white and not in the Black-Brown that I needed. I used a quality Espresso colored spray paint and gave them one light coat.

Followed by a heavier coat in a Black with Satin finish. I feathered it in a manner that the brown lightly shows through in places giving it a black brown appearance.

The center desk is a Gustav Desk in black brown The desk is normally US$299 but I found one in the As-is for considerably less, There was a good chip knocked off one of the front corners, but I rotated the desk top, to place it away from view.

The base of the bookshelves are the standard Billy units. I used to black units with various amounts of damage, but was easily hide-able with the doors. The black units I found were preferable to the black brown which were more expensive.

The Liatorp doors are normally at US$125 a pair and are a bit larger than the Billy Doors, so I had to use three sets of brass hinges from the hardware store for each book case. I let the doors hang over the edge and then fastened the brass hinges behind the door and against the outside of the Billy, they remain out of sight and work functionally.

The book cases do need to be fastened to the wall as the glass doors make them front heavy and prone to tip.

In the future I am going to add some glass Billy shelves, LED lighting and a small bit of crown molding to the top of each unit to give it a bit more detail."

Other work stations you may be interested in:
- A floating computer table
- Home office makeover
- An Effektiv work station
- A computer table from a door
- Gorgeous Besta work station
- Huge 8' work desk

Pax wardrobe toy storage

Kathryn in Canada found a simple and basic toy storage solution.

She says, "I found a huge stack of Ikea's Pax wardrobe shelves in the As-is section. At $1 a package and 2 shelves per pack, I ended up buying each package. I think it was 30 or 32 packages in all, which left me with 60-some of these Pax shelves.

I designed a fairly simple shelf unit, and measured it to fit the Gles storage box, at $1.99/bin. It's fairly simple and works great to store the little toys and books for the kids. Nothing fancy, and it does the job. At a very cheap price too! I think I used about 3-4 boards per shelf, 9 bins per shelf and made 2 in total.

A woody window sill

Tim gets hold of some Platta wooden decking to embellish his window sill which gives it a nice natural look.

He says, "I just made a hack using five Plattas. They were to be used for your terrace for flowers or walking on it I suppose. I don't really know. So I used them for making a window sill because these things do look ugh most times and are also ugh expensive.

After I had sawn them apart into a smaller and a bigger part below the 3rd bar, I put them back together at 90 degree angles using brackets and screws. All this took me one hour maximum. That's pretty much everything that's to say about it. They lie loose on the ugly stone window sill and as far as I am concerned I think they look pretty neat. The best is that it did cost me only about 30 Euros (approx. 45 US$) including the Plattas and brackets in comparison to about 100 Euros for a window sill from the hardware store."