Katie recently hacked a work space and shares it with us.
She says, "We used Faktum base units for the desks, a yellow kitchen work-top (sorry can't remember the name, it was a bargain corner find!) and the Vika Amon desk top with Vika Curry legs (this has a Faktum unit too, it was cheaper!)
I had lots of fun revisiting some of the old hacks in this earlier post. So here is more. Scroll down the original post to view the new versions.
Bill's Ordning ceiling lamp
An accident and an old shell lamp turns out to be a Cappiccinini, a term Pinky coins for her new lamp.
The frame of the Skylar lamp (can't find the link), after a gust of wind tears the paper lamp shade, is given a second chance at life with a shell lampshade.
Sarah needed a TV unit in her bedroom and found the Effektiv wall cabs perfect for it.
She says, "My husband and I bought a Malm bedroom set, and needed something that would work as a TV stand since the bed is so low. We had really limited space (due to the layout of the room) and everything at Ikea is around 42" long. We ended up buying an Effektiv wall cabinet, added the doors with frosted glass, and some capita legs, which brought it up to the perfect height, and perfectly sized for our 32" flat screen!"
Aah, what's life without the "New and Improved!" Over the months I've been receiving different takes on some hacks featured on this blog. Some are prettier, some just different ways of achieving the same results. I'll be uploading a few throughout the week. Check out this first batch. Scroll down the original post to see the new versions.
A prettier helmer cluster
An Ikea trestle leg makes a useful tripod for Carolina's home screen printing unit.
She says, "I wanted to do screen printing at home and needed an exposure unit. But since I am not very good at building things, I took an Ikea table leg (Vika Artur) and screwed two 500W lamps on it. The Ikea table leg was on special at $10 I think and the lamps cost around $15 each (found them at the Rona, for all you Quebecers out there, a hardware store). The length between my screen and the lamps is 24 inch which is perfect for screen burning. I have placed my coated screen on the tray, under it there's a foam cover with black paper, over it there is the transparency and a cheap frame glass ($20 at Canadian Tire, this was more expensive but I wanted the frame for something else). For now, I only did a time test. And with a white mesh small screen cover with speedball emulsion, it takes 5 min to burn my screen. I pretty happy about my end result."
When I saw this play kitchen I could only say "Wow! Lucky baby." This is from Lisa and it's hard to believe that this is her first hack. It sure gives all hack newbies hope.
She says, "This is my first hack, first blog attempt and first creative project ever. It was made with the Vika Furusund."
The shopping list is pretty extensive. The Ikea Furusund forms the frame of the unit. The handles, knife rack and magnetic containers are also from the yellow and blue box.
Don't you just love the faucets?
See details of Lisa's play kitchen on her blog.
Related hacks:
- Cooking for kids
- Play kitchen for under $200
Izzy does a terrific job covering up the cistern.
She says, "Ikea has just brought out a new range of bathroom furniture and I wanted to do a back to wall toilet with concealed cistern to match. The pictures show how to get the cistern and toilet waste to run through the Lillangen cabinet – the remote flush on top will eventually go through a piece of worktop."
A dash of colour adds some zing to the Expedit. Steve's Expedit vinyl station is definitely looking hot.
He says, "I've put this together over the last few weeks. It's an Expedit bookshelf that's modified for use as my turntable listening station. I ordered fire engine red contact vinyl from Ebay and covered the inner shelves (my skills from years of gripping skateboards came in handy). The lights are Ikea Dioders (I still have to clean up the wiring) and those are 6" Capita legs on the bottom. I'm pretty happy with it.
The only thing I'd do differently the next time around is to use automotive grade vinyl rather than contact paper vinyl. The heavy automotive vinyl is a little more difficult to cut but it'll hold up better over time and is available in many different colors.
See more of Steve's vinyl station on flickr.
Related hack:
- Hack a DJ console
Totally unrelated to Ikeahacking but I've just started a mini site where I post up things I find interesting, intriguing or catches my eye. It could be an item from a designer friend, stuff I pick up on my travels or at my local flea market. I won't be posting there regularly, only when I find something interesting that I offer to Ikeahacker readers at a good price. I'm very happy to post this first item which is a wall decal from a designer friend, whom I really want to support. Hop over for a peek.
Eleanor shows her spiffy apartment. Love the clean lines, but wait, what's that mess of wires? No worries. A hacked Hol to the rescue.
She says, "I have a small loft which serves as kitchen, lounge, dining room and study. I carefully planned the space and I use my iMac as a TV/DVD player, the bit that let the whole space down was my printer sitting in a mess of wires.
Stacy hacks a quick one for her cat.
I live in Europe, and the rooms here are quite small, and without a second bathroom - so we had real trouble figuring out a place to put our cat litter box. We loved the litter box hacks that we saw on the Ikeahacker blog, but at the end of the day, we didn't want a litterbox in our living room or bedroom. All the covered boxes we bought had huge domed lids which didn't fit under our Euro sink, and our big American 14lb. cat could barely even fit inside them anyway! My husband had the idea of using a lidded storage box, and we found the perfect item in the Ikea Snalis storage box. We cut out an entrance with a utility knife, and we originally had a plastic mat as a door -- which our cat hated, so now we just leave it open. There is plenty of room for our big boy inside, and its flat lid fits under the sink perfectly. It's a tiny little hack, but it works great!"
Susan has seen a few good lantern lampshades around and wanted to make her own. This seems really simple to do but the effect is quite something. Love the glowing coral look.
She says, "I used the basic Ikea Regolit lampshade (just the paper globe) in the medium size ($5), and a package of tissue paper from Target ($1.99).Starting at the bottom, I cut strips of tissue paper into a fringe and just glued around and around till I got to the top! It looks pretty outer-spacey or deep sea. Connecting it to the ceiling fixture in my room was a little challenging, but involved 3 binder clips and some wire - I wanted to make sure it was far enough from the bulb to not catch fire.
Israa uses Ram photo frames to create wall art, instead of framing art, with surprising results.
She says, "My hack is a modern wall art made out of Ikea Ram frames: I have always loved the look of sophisticated looking modern art pieces and I have to say that this project did it. For me, to make this look, I used 12 Ram frames in the following sizes:
3 50x70cm (approx 19.5"x27")
3 30x40cm (approx 12"x16")
3 21x30 (approx 8"x12")
3 10x15 (approx 4"x6")
I used a strong double sided stick foam tape to mount the frames, which worked great as the frames are very light weight. The biggest frame was mounted first. The other 3 frames are actually glued one on top of the other and set inside the big frame, which gives it kind of a 3D look. I used spray colour to paint the frames with black, silver, and purple. I have to say the picture does not do the art much justice as it looks more sophisticated in real life. I think it's the lighting. But you can see my cat Mimi enjoying it."
Pim Hansen builds his own DJ console from scratch, with the help of a few choice Ikea pieces.
Monique debuts with a jewelry organizer. Just a simple tweak and the Atran bathroom cabinet becomes a jewelry storage cabinet. I'm loving it.
She says, "My Ikea hack, the first one so far, is of an Atran bathroom cabinet. I needed something to store away my jewelry, more specifically earrings. I wanted something that would conceal them away from my sight, but at the same time that I could easily see them all easily.
A cabinet was the solution but I couldn't find anything affordable that had the sleek look I was going for. So, on one of my trips to Ikea I found this Atran cabinet that was everything I was looking for, the color was perfect, the sleekness... the shelves inside. I wanted something that if my earrings fell, they wouldn't go flying around, something would hold it so they wouldn't fall on the floor, that's where the little shelves came into play. I bought two and put them side by side, used kabob sticks I had around the house to make those mini rods to hang my earrings, bracelets etc from. I attached them to the cabinets with magnets since the cabinet is metal and I wanted something completely removable and that wouldn't harm the piece.
I used industrial glue to attach those little beads. By doing that I was able to attach the 2 magnets together so they would be able to hold the kabob sticks in between them and at the same time stay a little flexible to fit on the doors and also to save money by using things i already had around the house, like the glue, the string of beads, kabob sticks and some magnets.
It's really functional and I'm very happy with it."
Update! Here are more close up photos from Monique.
Kim has two hacks to share with us, which are great ideas for a compact office.
She says, "First is our very effective wall-mounted desk/workstation composed of an Effektiv low wall unit add-on and a Summera pull-out keyboard shelf.
The add-on unit was mounted to the wall using heavy duty screws and drywall anchors. To allow for more depth/substance to drill into, Casey had to add two extra strips of cardboard at the holes on the back side of the wall panel. We drilled in the keyboard shelf to the underside of the unit as per the manufacturer's instructions. Our desk chair fits perfectly underneath the keyboard shelf when not in use.
Mikael wanted a computer in the living room so he could play old school games and have as a media center. So he build this Ikea Lack htpc.
See more of Mikael's Ikea Lack htpc pictures.
Thank you all 3144 of you who voted for your favourite Ikea hack of 2008. The poll is closed and we have a winner! Pinot and Dita's fabric wall art is your favourite hack of the year, garnering over 20% of the votes, with Steffen's coffee table train a close contender at 14% of votes.
I am also very, very happy that for the first time since I started Ikeahacker in 2006, I am able to give a gift to the well-deserving hacker of the year. Thanks to Geoff from Grippiks.com, who runs an online store specialising in decorative accents for Ikea furniture. Woohoo! 
Another tablecloth hack - this one is from Andrea. Spicing up her cabinet with a Sommar tablecloth.
She says, "I used a piece of the Sommar paper tablecloth ($2.99, not found on website) to make an interesting background for this display cabinet. By the way, the cabinet itself is Ikea, from many years ago."
That's right. Why limit Ikea hacking to your home? Bring it to the drab, grey corporate world too. Maria, a graphic designer, needed to surround herself with inspiration, so she took it to task with a few Ikea tablecloths.
She says, "Real simple so the pictures pretty much explain themselves. I really needed something to spice up my cube when my company decided to move us into 6x6 cubes. As a graphic designer in a corporate world, I really needed something to keep me inspired. Not staring at plain cube walls all day really helps me get through the day much faster. It really doesn't feel like a cube at all now.
The walls are covered in a picnic table cover (not found on website) I bought for 99 cents or something ridiculous like that at Ikea. Then added a few touches to make it more like home. The lamp, vase, mirror, clock, blanket and monitor stand are also from Ikea.
I have to say this cost me very little and had a very big impact."
View more of Maria's cube makeover.
Marleen decorates her Vika Amon tabletop kitsch style.
She says, "I had an old white Vika Amon tabletop with square wooden legs (which they no longer seem to sell, can't find them on the site). It had spent a few years as a desk and then a few more as a dining table, and was getting ugly - deep scratches, and the finish was flaking off. So I did the following to it.
before you shop. By simply starting from here, you'll tell Amazon to throw a few coins in my tip jar, with no change in your shopping experience or total bill.
