ikea hacks make joe's fabulous car room a reality

on their own, they are nothing fabulous but this is where the phrase 'the sum of its parts is greater than its whole' really comes true. a couple of well-placed ikea hacks transform joe kelly jr's basement into a fabulous car room.

joe tells me, "i have a model car collection in my basement, and i wanted to build in some display space, add a couple pieces of 'utility' furniture, and do it on the cheap.

first was the display cabinets against the wall. i used billy cases, but i had to shorten them to fit into the space i was intending to use. i also added a slew of new shelf-mounting holes (man, talk about math! getting the new holes into the 'rhythm' of the old ones wasn't easy). i tossed the backing that came with the cabinets, and installed corrugated steel (just like the stuff used throughout the rest of the room). i glued and screwed the sections together and mounted them into the wall space. then i added a combination of halogen and fluorescent lighting.

second was the table/support for the glass case in the center of the room. i used an ikea sofa table, added in an additional shelf, boxed the legs with ikea shelves cut to size, then ran wire under the floor and added an electrical outlet underneath, for the built-in slot car track power supply. i secured the glass display case for more models above it all.

the reason i have a slot car power supply is that the ceiling lowers down, revealing a slot car track. i built that, too, but it wouldn't have worked if not for the twin ikea coffee tables i bashed together at the front of the room. i used two square tables (silver and black) which i cut to size, doweled and glued together, and attached to a sturdy plywood base with casters. i topped the table with rubber floor matting. this table does double duty; when the track is up, it's a coffee table. when i want to lower the track, i stand the table on end, and it supports the forward section of the platform.

there's a couple of ways to see it. one is to go to my web site: another is to watch the 'Look What I Did' segment below."

bathroom special: space saving wall mounted vanity

was meaning to post this earlier in the day but am having lots of trouble with my internet connection. anyways, this post made it for bathroom day and it's worth the wait.

clever, clever use of the stolmen chest! david m turns it into a wall mounted vanity. perfect for small bathrooms.

david m writes, "i made a vanity out of the ikea stolmen chest with 2 drawers. i wall mounted it and modified it for use as a vanity like this one only for $50 instead of $1500. i found the sink and faucet at grassroots modern.

of course, there's a drain and p-trap coming down from the sink and going back to the wall. in order to make the drawers functional, i had to shorten them. this wasn't particularly difficult - cut the drawer base to the desired depth, cut a groove to receive the drawer back, drill 4 holes to attach the drawer back with the original plastic ikea hardware. works just like it did before only the drawers are a little less than half as deep. it's a lot better than nothing, though, and my wife uses the top drawer as countertop space when she's getting ready in the morning because our vanity is so small.

wall-mounting the vanity turned out to be easier than i thought. i took a 4' section of 1.5" angle stock from home depot, cut 2 pieces of about 19", bolted it with some pretty heavy bolts to the studs in the wall, drilled a couple holes on top of the new vanity at the back to correspond with the holes in the angle stock and bolted the vanity to the bracket. i then bolted up a second bracket to the wall inside the vanity at the bottom and bolted the vanity to that. from there, i cut a hole in the top of the vanity for the faucet and another for the drain, mounted the sink and faucet and that was it."

see david's wall mounted vanity flickr photoset.

see previous bathroom hacks.

bathroom special: gorgeous sink on a bekvam

thought of doing a bathroom day! so i'll be posting two hacks for the busiest room in the house. the first is from karen in san francisco who madeover her bathroom and hacked this cute sink. the second one will be posted later today.

***

"we redid our entire bathroom, and in the process, wanted to get a bowl sink on top of a dark wood table. the table we wanted was $900!!! so i decided to make my own.

i bought the bekvam kitchen cart for $49.99. before assembling, i cut the hole in the top with a sabre saw per the sink installation instructions. i wasn't going to put the wheels on, and i sawed off the back two legs so they would be the same length as the now non-wheelies ones. i stained all of the parts with a dark walnut stain.

when dry, i assembled the table without the middle shelf. i put 3 coats of clear satin waterproof stain on it since it's in a high moisture area. i put the sink on top, caulked around it, attached a drain pipe, and had a plumber install wall faucets. groovy! and a heckluva lot cheaper than $900!

the sink and faucet are from Expo Home Design Center."

light up with this storage for small spaces

rudi and melanie found a bright solution for storage in their tiny alcove.

"we have a very small alcove (95cm/37.5") in our corridor. but most closets are 100cm. so we built a closet with chipboards and used an ikea pax vikedal mirror door over it. on the left door (which is built from mdf), we mounted 3 ikea stamning lights. the lights are connected to a wiring closet so they can turn on with a normal light switch."

a paint job can turn trash into art

diane turned this bench (the name, anyone?), salvaged from the trash, into a little piece of art.

she first transferred the design, taken from an Art Nouveau book that she had and drew it on the bench with white colored pencil. then, she coloured it in with acrylics.

see more of diane's art nouveau bench.

lcd monitor hang ups

rob of how to point oh shares this ingenious hack, using the grundtal towel hanger/shelf to hang up his monitors.

"i had a wonderful ikea shelf lying around the house with no use. i decided to use the shelf along with some hooks to make myself a nice monitor rack for my lcds."

see rob's instructions for hanging your lcd monitors.

looking for a slim, good looking computer table?

marcus had no space for an ordinary computer desk in his living room because they were all too deep, like 60 cm+ (approx 2'). he needed a desk that could be minimized when not used.

marcus writes, "my room had lots of available width but only 40 centimeters depth (approx 16") that i could use. the only option was to make a custom computer desk.

i bought a malm bedside table in oak then i went to the hardware shop and bought roll-in roll-out 'lanes' for my keyboard shelf. the keyboard shelf was made from leftover parts from a pax closet. the malm wheels were removed because i didn't want any movement. this is the result."