Stockholm shadows on the wall

Kalle casts pretty shadows on the wall with this Stockholm bowl.

Kalle says, "It's a wall lamp with a decorative light cast on the wall itself. The lighting effect is visible at daytime but quite spectacular at night and the 'wall flower' is well over 1m large.

The ingredients are:
- Stockholm stainless steel bowl
- 35W reflector bulb
- Electronic dimmer
- Lamp mounting kit and lamp wire

The light fixing is mounted through a drilled hole in the center of the bowl with ordinary light fixing material. The bowl is hard stainless steel and pretty thick, so be warned that the drilling takes a while.

It is mounted with a standard screw in one of the center holes in the leaf-pattern where it is almost invisible.

An armchair to go

All the furniture in Andrew's house are on wheels. Hmm ... certainly makes cleaning easier. For us, he gives the Tullsta Armchair mobility.

He say, "Basically, I remove the stick legs from the Tullsta and replace it with a wood 2x4 box and Rill casters to put the armchair on wheels. 95% of the stuff is Ikea, and can be bought currently. I've done this to 4 of my Tullsta chairs, and it's a real simple hack."

See more pictures and instructions for the Tullsta on wheels.

Hang with these hackeas

Hook up dresses
Andi gets some Bygel rails and hooks. "I used them in my daughters room to hang up dress-up clothes so they are in easy reach for them but organized for me!" Clamping them tight is all you need to do.

See more of her dress-up hangers.

Hook up with colours

Robert changed a seemingly "useless" product into a row of colourful hooks. He says, "I made a nice Ikea hack and just hope they release it themselves because the original product is totally useless as it is now (in my opinion). At the Ikea-family dept (in Amsterdam) they sell 5 wonderful colored hooks (Njuta, not found on their site) on a ring(?) and I just used that hooks and some curtain rail stuff to make a nice hall rack!"

Coat hanger

Laura found a great way to hang up her coats. She says, "I needed something to hang coats and jackets near the door in the non-existent hallway of my super small new home. The problem was that I can't make holes on that wall because there is a sliding door and on the other wall there are electric panel and other stuff that I
can't cover. In addition there isn't enough depth to place a piece of furniture that stands up on its own without being fixed to the wall. The last problem is the lack of money.

So I drilled two holes above the structure of the door and put a Komplement multi-use hanger on two hooks. I used a set of Bygel S-hook to hang stuff and placed a piece of Lenda fabric behind, just to make it more colorful.

It needs improvement, expecially on the 'hooks' side, but it works really well, I like it and it is incredibly cheap.

Hang up the bottles
Rob finds a way to hang up bottles. He says, "I simply super glued a metal washer to the cap of a prescription bottle, and yes it must be super glue - all others I tried failed (Elmer's Glue All, any white craft glue, Hot glue gun) But the super glue worked.

Then I take a Ikea Asker magnetic knife holder. And hang them up, with the little bottles filled with staples, paperclips, small nuts and bolts - you name it."

A Bekvam and Molger bathroom remodel

This bathroom remodel is from Tricia, who claims to be the only woman she knows who sleeps with a chop saw.

Tricia tells me, "I live in an old duck-hunting cabin which was gentrified, so I am in process of de-prissying it.

I hacked a Bekvam kitchen cart to make a vanity for the small sink in an unbelievably tiny bathroom.

I reduced the depth and cut new grooves for the angle brackets (shallow cut with a circular saw). Reduced the depths of the shelves, and halved the length of the centre slat in the top shelf to give room for the waste. for symmetry I put both wheels at the back. Two coats of polyurethane.

I also used Molger benches to make cupboard doors and a bath panel. The Molger benches can be made into practically anything. That bathroom is all walnut, teak and mahogany � I made the cupboard casings from mahogany with veneer inlay over the screw heads. the doors swivel on pins top and bottom rather than hinges.

The vanity with the larger Hollviken sink was a dining buffet."

Awesome bathroom, ain't it?

Outdoor cooking with the Varde

David takes the cooking outdoors by hacking a Varde sink unit into something better than a BBQ grill.

He says, "When we moved to California, our apartment had an electric stove, which we hate. Also, we wanted to be outside on the patio to enjoy the weather. We're vegetarians, so we don't actually grill that much. So we did this instead. We got a Varde sink unit on sale, enlarged the precut hole a bit and dropped in a propane cooktop designed for an RV that I bought off eBay for about $25. Add a tank, and we're cooking with (propane) gas! The hole for the faucet is still there. I'm trying to decide whether to fill it with wood or to put some metal cup thing underneath so that it can be an integrated place to dispose of matches used to light the burners."

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Taking the Y out of D.I.Y.
Ikea is putting on its clever advertising hat again. This time its for their assembly service in Germany. I've heard many complaints about their assembly instructions (though I think they are one of the best instruction sheets I've ever seen), so the jokes on them for this campaign.

Click to view 2 more ads on Forsby and Billy. Thanks, Alexandra!

Venny Notebook Bag

Jimmy from Belgium takes to needle and thread to sew himself a netbook bag.

He says, "Yippie, I got myself a 10� netbook, but how do I hold on to it as long as possible without anyone else stealing it? Well, you can get a obvious netbook bag or sleeve, but that says 'Hey, inside is a netbook'. Instead I chose to disguise it. I took a Venny Placemat folded it double, sewed the long side and bottom (by hand as the misses said the fabric is to thick for her machine!). Then I attached the loops side of velcro on the inside, the hooks part on the outside. Now I can slide the netbook in it (without scratching in on the velcro), close it up and stuff it in my 8� decathlon backpack. Easy, quick and the netbook is well protected against scratches and masked for those with less good intentions."

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Ikea's pricing error
Did you buy any Akurum cabinets from August 1, 2008 to May 2009? Then dig out those old receipts and see if you've been overcharged. According to this 3-On Your Side report, "over 150 cabinets were being rung up at the register for a higher price than what was being advertised in the brochures and catalogues." Not good. We know how easy it is to lose track of the prices when you add on hinges, knobs, doors, shelves ... but hey, we thought that's what computers were for. Good news is, Ikea has corrected the "technical glitch" and will refund the difference if you have been overcharged. Click on this link to see all the cabinets affected by the pricing error.

Catching the sun with the Solig mobile

Doro adds a nice touch of colour to the summer Solig mobile.

She says, "I fell in love with the Solig mobile. But I found it too graphical with too little colours. Therefore I added some glass beads. Now it's perfect for me. simple but fanciful."





See more on Doro's blog.