The light feast #1

I'll be posting a series of lighting and lamp hacks today and the next two days. Here are the first few.

A movable pendant light

A hacker who prefers to be anonymous sends me this fantastic movable pendant lamp.

"We have transformed a cheap ceiling lamp (Melodi) into a work lamp. We only needed a longer cable and a curtain rail."

Salad bowl lamp
Roberto combines a Janauri lamp and Blanda salad bowl for a cool looking shade.

To drill a hole in the Blanda salad bowl, Roberto recommends using the same tools proposed for the Boholmen: the FIXA 2-piece tool set which is sold separately.

See more of Roberto's salad bowl lamp.

PosteRazor lamp shade
Leslie hacked an Ikea paper floor lamp. It's the Skyar, I think, but it is no longer available on Ikea's site. You could do a similar thing with the Horup.

Leslie tells me, "We recently hacked an Ikea lamp. Taking a picture of our beloved Astroboy, we used PosteRazor to enlarge and print it on sheets of backlit film for inkjet printers (from Folex), then attached the sheets to the lamp frame using photoclips and some nylon thread (easy but fiddly)."

See previous lighting hacks.

Cherry wood floating sink

A nice bathroom redo from Denis.

He says, "I used a Hollviken sink but created my own floating counter with cherry wood.

Here is the bathroom before to show the uglyness.

And here are 2 photos at different angles of the sink.

Other sink hacks:
- Splatgirl's stylish bathroom hacks
- Sink bowl hack
- From drab to fab bathroom remodel

Here's an affordable modern credenza

Tyler puts together a credenza from the Traby line, only to have it blend too well with the floor. Eight coats of high gloss paint later, we have a winner.

He also replaced the stumpy Traby legs with Capita legs.

See more of Tyler's modern credenza on his blog.

From pillowcases to placemats

Melissa Fehr is one prolific Ikea hacker. She's done it again with these post-Christmas castaways.

She dismantles the Isig pillowcases and refashions them into placemats, each complete with contrasting cutlery pocket and coaster.

Click to view more of her placemats and coasters on her blog.

See Melissa's other hacks:
- Her famous shower curtain dress
- A pillowcase skirt

Make space for baby!

Brittanie and hubby lives in a relatively small apartment and with the new arrival of their baby boy, finding closet space wasn't easy.

Her solution? A bookcase closet space.

"We got a small bookcase from Ikea and drilled holes into the sides of it. We then slipped a curtain rod through the holes and created a small closet type setup for our baby's room. We can take out the shelves as he gets bigger, but for now it's incredibly wonderful to have. We use the knobs on the outside to hang his bath towels. Simple, but perfect for us."

Squeeze a big pantry into a small space

Dhiraj creates a neat pantry space with smart use of the Akurum. I love how they just seem to disappear into the wall.

"Here is my conversion of the pantry in our newly acquired but small home in Ontario, Canada. I used three Akurum high cabinets with the Arlig doors. The cabinets had to be reduced in depth from 12 inches to 7 inches to fit flush into the available space. My wife helped me with the long cuts on the table saw.


The three pictures show the space as we took possession of it, the interim period and finally the finished product. The surrounding walls are still undergoing transformation and hence the unfinished look."

Click to view more pantry hacks:
> Slim pantry for small kitchen
> Gorm pantry

Hack the hex

This is brilliant. Nate found a way to 'powerize' the hex key. No more numb fingers and blisters.

He says, "When revamping my workspace a few weeks ago - and not in the mood to unscrew my Jerker desk by hand - I thought I might try sacrificing one of the countless hand wrenches I've picked up from Ikea. In a perfect world I would have had a drill bit exactly sized for the hex screws used in the desk's fixtures but, alas, such things escape my grasp.

So I took the freebie hex wrench, cut it at the straightest edge I could manage with the bolt cutters and slid the new 'bit' into the chuck of the power drill. It held in there just fine and I had my desk in pieces in minutes. I imagine that this technique isn't limited to just this driver but to any and all Ikea wrenches and hand drivers, from the S shapes to the L's."