Geek haven - Ikea robotic chair and table

Description: This is not my hack, but I found this link today and thought I would pass it along."Conceived by NYU ITP student Adam Lassy, the 'IKEA Robotics' is an interestingly cool seating and table that encourage lazier living at your beck and call via a clever technological tweak."

See more on Hometone.

~ LD

Saralisa lights up

Materials: Saralisa fabric, Orgel Table Lamp minus the lampshade, 4 pieces of light weight wood strips for the frame, staple gun

Description:
1. Saralisa Fabric, 2 yards x 3.5 yards needed
2. Lightweight Wooden frame, 2 pieces 74 inches, 2 pieces 48 inches
3. Nail together the four pieces of wooden frame with 2 finishing nails per corner
4. Stretch Ikea Saralisa fabric very tightly over the wooden frame, the tighter you stretch it, the more the sides will bend in, giving it a really appealing hourglass-like shape, if you would rather have the traditional rectangle shape, then stretch the fabric less
5. Staple gun the fabric at least every few inches onto the wooden frame, folding in the corners.
6. Trim the fabric in the back as needed
7. Stand against wall, put an Orgel table lamp without lampshade behind it and turn it on!
8. Enjoy :)

~ Sisi

Foiled by the Samtid!

Materials: Samtid floor lamp, drum shade, wire cutters,pliers,clip on lamp shade

Description: Picked up the Samtid floor lamp from Ikea Canada. I love what to me is a great mix of contemporary yet classic design. The price was great at $49.99 CDN. It would fit in great with my decor and give me the overall look I wanted. Sad to say the wife hated the shade. She felt the plastic shade cheapened the lamp. Looking online I figured out we would need a Uno Fitter Lamp Shade, but at pretty much every retail store I went to they were not to be found. Even calling specialty lighting stores I had 0 luck.

Looking a little deeper it seems that with low budget imports most every lampshade available requires the use of a harp. I took the lamp apart but found it very difficult to disassemble socket. Specifically the wiring to socket. At the risk of damaging the lamp I decided I would need to either (a) cut the wiring to remove the socket and hope I could feed the wire back through the tubing OR (b) give up the modification. I had picked up a great shade the would have to go back. In the end I found a solution to my problem.

I took the lamp and removed the existing plastic shade. However I left the three support rods intact. I purchased a drum shade that would match my existing room decor. I managed to find a children's lamp that had a clip on style shade. The wiring simply went over your standard light bulb. Using my pliers I removed the wiring from the shade. I then took the new lamp shade and using a thin wire attached the clip-on wiring to the new shade. It worked like a charm ! Now I have a great lamp that fits the look of the room. All in all the project cost me about $70.00.

The lamp itself was $50, the new shade was $20, and the clip-on shade was something my parents had lying around the house.

~ Mike Boss, Toronto, Ontario Canada

Bachelor pad music room

Materials: Expedit (base) is faced in walnut plywood, desk is Numerar countertop

Description: Just saw this on the Modernica blog, not my hack.

See more at on Modernica.

Gorm chairs

Materials: Gorm shelves, chair frames, circular saw and other assorted tools, screws

Description: I am lucky to live in a university town that sells surplus equipment to the public. I've gotten most of my chairs there...some really nice ones, too. These chairs started out very nice, but were used as outdoor chairs for many years until the plywood insides fell apart. So, I removed the cushions until I was left with just the metal frames, and replaced them with Gorm shelves (an older style than those now available here), which are just the right size to fit the frames. They still need to be waterproofed so I can leave them outside, but since I'm chronically lazy, that might not happen.

~ Dave Etler, Iowa City, IA

BITIG clock into information board

Materials: BITIG clock, paper, pictures

Description: My son (3) kept asking every morning whether it was a "kindergarten"-day or not. He seemed to be keen on keeping track of the days - weekdays or weekends. He also wanted to know what would happen each day.

We went to IKEA together and bought a BITIG clock. The orange dots are removable round magnets. We removed them.

I designed the days of the week as parts of a circle, printed, laminated and cut them. Then I printed out pictures for "at home", "in the kindergarten" and "birthday". The pictures for "home" and "kindergarten" are now put on the days of the week corresponding to the coming week. Usually it stays pretty much the same, just this week it was a little different because of Pentecost Monday being a day off.

In addition to that, whenever there is a birthday we use the magnet with the birthday cake and a picture of the person celebrating (here: his uncle).

In the evening I manually "set" his information board to the next day (of course I did not put a battery into the clockwork). Now he loves to go to it first thing in the morning and look what's up.

Later we can add more information (visitors, outings...), and maybe when he is older we will use it as a clock again. For now it is wonderful the way it is.

~ Anneke

Stacked nightstands

Materials: 2 Aneboda nightstands

Description: After moving a pair of Billy bookcases into our Aneboda-stocked guest room, we realized the nightstands suddenly had no home. There wasn't enough floorspace to keep them both around, given that we already have a narrow 5-drawer and standard sized 3-drawer dresser in there. To maintain storage space, but use less floorspace, I simply stacked the leftover nightstands, with a minor modification.

I removed the top board on the lower nightstand, and removed the feet from the upper nightstand. With a few holes drilled, I was able to fit them together with the existing twist-in metal rods and wooden dowels. I added steel L-brackets to give a bit more structural integrity between the walls of the lower unit and the floor of the upper unit.

Now we have a really nice looking place to keep spare linens and towels for the guests, and we were able to reuse about $100 worth of furniture that otherwise would have had no home.

They don't sell these units anymore, but this is basically the same, only with 3 drawers, whereas ours has only a drawer on the bottom.

~ Benjamin, Fort Worth, Texas