give your speakers sexy legs

as speakers shrink in size, the demand for slimmer stands are on the rise. but they are so darn hard to find at the usual speaker stand stores. marcus, while searching for speaker stands, found this fabulous set and shares it with us. [via 6moons audio review]

david kan gives a blow-by-blow account of how to make your own speaker stand out of the vika inge legs, exklusivt butcher block (treated with skydd wood treatment oil).

hop over to 6moons audio review for david's tutorial.

rast not in peace

there are 2 products in the rast range, a bedside table and a 3-drawer chest. they are relatively cheap and not the prettiest pea in ikea's pod. but they are made from untreated solid wood so that makes them totally hackable. let's start with the rast beside table.

rob's rast ottomans
he writes, "just thought i would show you my rast ottomans! a very simple hack! i upholstered two rast bedside units to make footstools that double as a coffee table! now i tell my guests to 'rast' their feet!"

see more of rob's rast ottoman and other hacks.

andrea's rast printer stand
"the attached pictures are of two rast bedside tables that i turned into a scanner-printer stand," she says. "at first, i planned to assemble both according to the directions. but the floor is very uneven. they'd look silly leaning in different directions from each other. instead, i assembled the first table according to the directions. then i shortened the shelves of the second one and attached them to the first.

i borrowed a nifty tool to precisely place and line up the screw holes, but i don't remember what it was called. then i added the end piece and stained the whole thing. the stand fits wonderfully into the small space i've got. my computer table sticks out from a hallway into the eating area, so i wanted something that wouldn't crowd the hall any worse.

notice too, there's now room for my beast of a scanner, which used to live in another room. but the best part was the price... $30 for both tables. oh, the black metal bookends are also ikea. flit. i spray-painted them black.

jake's rast kitchen counter top storage
jake had a kitchen counter that was too deep leaving a lot of wasted space. to solve this he took a rast bedside table and chopped it into half. best part is, it works!

see more of jake's rast kitchen counter top storage.

and now onto the rast 3-drawer chest. my guess is that the chest looks so utilitarian that one cannot help but try to beautiful it. here's how 2 hackers did it.

sol's rast 3-drawer chest with clay knobs
sol writes, "i bought two rast chests of drawers for my son's room. he's one year old and his clothes begin to be a bit too many. i mounted the chest up and realized it was dull and plain ugly. so i bought some blue paint and oven-hardening modelling clay. i painted both chests twice, and with the clay i made some nice knobs.

these are the knobs. the clay is from eberhard-faber and is called fimo

see more of sol's rast chest with clay knobs.

astrid's painted rast drawers
"we got a simple rast chest of drawers," she tells me, "and my father painted it for my daughter (whose initials are EML). we used the numbered drawer pulls also from ikea to replace the original plain wood ones.

he did let the wood dry out for a few weeks before painting it, so that it would take the paint better."

and now, it's handsfree reading

i do a lot of reading and typing while at my desk so i totally dig this hack from gordon.

he writes, "i was definitely inspired by switch to handsfree psp viewing but i was looking for something a little more multi-purpose. you usually see these retractable boom arms in radio stations with a microphone attached to it (about $150!) for $8.99, ikea's tertial lamp works just as well as a music stand in my home studio. for added stability, i recommend swapping out the (flimsy) stock hardware for higher quality bolts and wing nuts. also, plumbing hardware works wonders for permanent mounting to a desk or wall."

achieve a built-in kitchen look with a few hacks

michael does a bang up job for his kitchen - using parts of the ikea kitchen system to achieve a built-in look.

michael writes, "i'm not a builder, just a web-designer/photographer. i did all of this work myself... took long enough! these shots are from my almost-finished kitchen, so don't mind the missing baseboards & trim here & there...

ikea kitchen cabinets are great - really sturdy and hold up well to sawing and chopping... they just don't come in all the sizes we want, right?

take their drawers - lots of big deep drawers, but most people want at least one stack of narrow drawers. using a good table saw, i carefully cut the drawer fronts shorter, re-glued the binding to the top edges, and made my own configuration - this is really useful, and ikea REALLY should make one:

here's my oven/warming drawer combo. took a 36" 4-drawer stainless base cabinet, mounted the sides in a tall plywood shell that the oven installed into, and used three of the drawers. (now i have a leftover 36" stainless deep drawer sitting around... will be a future hack...)

the ikea stainless matches the appliances nicely, and it's handy as heck. here's the framework under construction... you can see the ikea cabinet sides and bottom, recessed into the plywood. you really have to be able to 'think in 3D' to figure this kind of hack out. when you finally start chopping, it's a little nerve wrecking.

here's a simple one - i wanted a 'built-in' look for the fridge, so i just mounted a wall cabinet into the plywood 'nook'; now i just need to trim out the fridge. the circles up-top are vents, since the fridge needs to vent its heat - those are actually aluminum soffit vents, i think they look cool as hell.

that's a 36" cooktop cabinet under the gas burners. i had to cut off the fake drawer fronts, and cut down the sides. the other cabinets are pretty much stock; my wife and i poured and ground the concrete countertops and bar top; 2" thick with integral green stain and a built-in travertine drainboard. the stainless surrounds for the cooktop came from a local metal fabricator, about $200. that cooktop? heck of a bargain - it's an electrolux, 6 burners, essentially a wolf/viking style, but... $1300 new!

by the way, if you're considering concrete counters, add a lot of stainless areas too - the concrete really seems to suck up oils, even with lots of sealer."

need some style in the dining room? wallpaper your table!

alice saves her table from water spills and adds a bit of style to the plain vika.

she says, "the top was little bit damaged, because our baby daughter enjoyed spilling water at every meal (!), so we decided to apply, on the top, some vintage wallpaper we had. the wallpaper was glued to the top, and then we used a 6mm laminated glass to protect it for our everyday use, water spilling included... the project was extremely fast, cheap and easy, and really transformed a common object into something special."

see more of alice's wallpaper table.

pax wardrobe workstation

blaine finds a neat solution for his workstation. nothing is hacked, really, but it's a nice repurposing of the pax wardrobe.

he says, "i took a double-wide pax wardrobe with sliding doors and made it my desk / photo studio / storage area."

what makes this work are the pull out drawers, used to house his keyboard and other computer components.

see more of blaine kendell's wardrobe workstation.

easy peasy daisy rug for your kid's room

deanna was searching for a rug for her daughter�s room but couldn't find one that was the right size and color or affordable.

that was until her husband intervened and out came this daisy rug, from 7 ringum rugs.

click to see more of deanna's daisy rug.