Extensive Ivar Hack: Workstation & Micro-foyer

Materials: Ivar shelving, lumber (luan, pine plank, molding), various mending plates, L-brackets, handtools (saw, screwdrivers), power tools (circular saw, drill, Dremel).

Description: My flat is rather small and I have a large computer workstation so maximizing space and being able to integrate work and living space is important to me. Also, from the outside, the flat's front door opened into my living room. If the front door was open there wasn't much privacy and too much gear would be potentially on display for my taste. This Ivar hack solved these two issues for me.

The "smart" side of the hack provides adequate ergonomic space for my workstation and the "dumb" side works to create a micro-foyer. By adding a "ceiling" above the smart side I was able to create some space to keep the gear I'm not using on any particular project nearby.

Wraparound Mandal

Materials: Mandal Headboard

Description: Not really a hack but a modification.

I love the look of the Mandal but our recent downsize left us with a very cramped bedroom. So we chopped the ends of of two Mandals and mounted them on the side walls. The only addition was to add a extra strip of wood along the back of the side pieces to keep all the slats from moving about. The headboards are affixed directly to the wall. One final touch, not done yet, will be to paint the screw heads used to affix them white so they will not be visible.

UDDEN goes living room

Materials: UDDEN Wall units, coated chipboard, metal angles, screws

Description: I was looking for a sideboard/storage unit for the living room. As I have a open kitchen that can be seen from the sofa, I wanted something to match with my UDDEN kitchen units.

Still considering different solutions, I bought two wall units for the kitchen. As I assembled the units in the living room, I realized a nice solution that just needed very little hacking:

I built a rectangular base from coated chipboard and metal angles (approx. 10 cm in height), stacked six wall units on the top and fixated the ensemble with some metal screws here and there...

Et voila! a nice and clean sideboard with lots of storage (and pretty cheap as well).

~ Folke, Berlin

A garden swing-a

Materials: PS SVINGA

Description: Alternative mounting making an indoor children's swing chair a nice garden swing for the parents.

~ Bjarne Bisballe, Denmark

SOVSÄCK HACK for ALVINE Bedspread

Materials: ALVINE Bedspread, 100" zipper, upholstery thread, sewing machine

Description: I am going camping in a few weeks, and I wanted a sleeping bag with style. Along those lines, I devised this very simple sleeping bag hack.

SOVSÄCK means "sleeping bag" in Swedish according to Google Translate. :)

You will need:

1 Sewing Machine (or a hand sewing needle and a lot of patience)
1 Size 16 (heavy gauge) Machine Needle
1 Spool Heavy Duty/Upholstery Thread
1 100" Sleeping Bag Zipper
1 Bedspread

I've included some lovely IKEA-style instructions (if slightly inaccurate and not all that informative - hey it's harder than it looks!) for a visual.

Tufted. A love story.

Materials: Rykene Ikea full size bed.

Description: We wanted to jazz up an existing Rykene bed in guest room of our recently purchased home. I had done a little bit of research on tufting and found a great tutorial for making tufted headboards. Using a pegboard and some 3 inch foam, I laid out a pattern of tufts.

Using pegboard was the most ingenious idea! After figuring out where I wanted the tufts, I cut through the foam (a little larger than my button size) so the tufts would be very deep.

I used gorilla glue to hold the foam to my peg board and laid a layer of batting on top. Then I draped my fabric (we used a really crazy pattern -- we wanted BIG change in that room) over that to center the pattern on the headboard.

TERTIAL lamp with a new lease of life

Materials: TERTIAL Lamp

Description: For my father's 64th birthday, I wanted to make him an LED table lamp.

I have quite a few unused TERTIAL lamps from IKEA and thought I'd give them a new lease of life.

The lamp was easy enough to dismantle and by prying the black plastic pieces at the end of the metal tubes, you can effectively remove the existing wiring and re-feed another set of cables. For the lights to fire sequentially, I needed a cable with 4 wires.

Grow with these ideas

Materials: transparent Samla box 53x37x12, peat rich in organic matter, vegetable seedlings

Description: Do you want to grow your own fresh salad in your balcony? It's much more simple than you thought. You just need ground and seedlings!

EXPEDIT curtain makes the clutter go away

Materials: Expedit, betydlig

Description: Super simple hack, but I'm proud of myself for getting it done. My Expedit has been an eye-sore in my living room for the past month or so. It has everything in besides books; my dog's food/snacks, baking dishes, shoes, craft items etc. I've been looking for different ways to cover it up; Expedit inserts, boxes but I didn't feel like buying 8 of those suckers. Finally, I stopped by Ikea and found a cheap curtain rod, and brackets and hung a curtain.

Monster Desk for Med Student & Programmer

Materials: 5xVika Amon (black-brown, 29.5x59), 1xGalant Drawer Unit on Casters, 3xblack-brown rails (as-is), framing 2x4's, 3 & 4 inch construction screws, L brackets, straight brackets, drywall screw anchors

Description: When reading the book "Med School Confidential," my girlfriend came across their number one piece of advice for setting up a study area: a huge desk for all the books and papers that you'll inevitably need to reference. So when we moved into a new house, we know our old Office Depot-bought small glass desks would no longer cut it. As a programmer, I wanted space for multiple large monitors as well as room for books and papers when designing out new code.

We knew we wanted a floating-desk style design, or at least as close as possible to it, which meant no legs, and some tricky engineering to get support at seams where the 4 tabletops met. I knew I wanted plenty of leg room under my desk, which made us opt for the wider (29.5") Vika Amon tabletops. We also each wanted an L-shaped desk, which meant a U when put together.

We operated under a few constraints like the size of our room, the height of our windows, and the fact that neither our walls nor corners were straight, but here's what we did.

Decide on a desk height - in our case, they had to fit below our windows. Cut and mount 2x4 framing studs along the walls so that the top of the desk will be at the desired height when laid on top of it. Use at least 2 construction screws at each stud for a firm hold. Make sure to keep everything level as you work around your perimeter.

Simple kitchen island from bed slats

Materials: Sultan Lade bed slats, saw, drill with screwdriver bit, screws, hammer, finishing nails

Description: Saw some kitchen island that I liked but none of them had the exact dimensions I needed, nor did I want to spend $50+ on something that didn't work for us. Every renter can use a little extra counter space, right?
So I came across a guy getting rid of the Sultan Lade bed slats on Craigslist and I picked them up.

I just winged it with the dimensions, measuring our counter and the space around it to suit our needs. The wood is soft enough that it's easy to cut and easy to drill a screw through it without a pilot hole, so I hammered some of the pieces and screwed others. But it's also strong enough to hold steady when all put together.

It took less than an hour and voila! A simple, custom made island. Nothin' to it. and plenty of slats left over for another shelf or anything I might need in the future.

~ Jason, Eagle Rock, LA, CA

A castle bunk bed

Materials: 1 Kura bed, 4 Flynn Lill, 1 Ribba, 2 Sultan Florvag, 1 Barnslig Natten, 1 Dioder, plastic duct 10 cm x 3 mt, pink painting

Description: A castle bunk bed for my two little daughters, with special effects, I hope you enjoy it :)

See more of the Kura castle bunk bed.

~ Anna, Italy

Baseball Card Table

Materials: Lack End Table. Glue Gun and Glue Sticks, baseball cards

Description: Purchase of 22" x 22" Lack end table.
Picked out 1970's 80's Baseball cards of players I remembered.
Used Glue Gun to affix cards to table top.
Used white glue, 3 parts with 1 part water and applied to cards' faces.
Once dried I used an Epoxy Resin mix to seal the table and have a functional table that would be a great conversation piece at parties.

See more of the baseball card Lack side table.

~ Steve, New York

Turnbuckle Table

Materials: 1 Molger table frame, 2 big slices of oak, 8 turnbuckles, 16 dome-headed bolts, 16 nuts

Description: I found a discontinued Molger frame in the As-Is section (best section EVAR!), and realized that I had to make a table out of it. So, I found a pair of beautiful oak planks at a local woodshow to add.

I assembled the Molger, then glued the planks together into a single surface and planed it smooth. I centred the Molger on the table, then drilled through the surface and into the tops of the Molger's corner posts. I glued dowels into the holes, connecting the two into a table and used a high-gloss varnish.

Cleaning up the Expedit

Materials: Expedit, Leckman, tape, blade, 12x12 cardstock

Description: We recently bought our second Expedit 2x4 tower from Ikea. I love the versatility of this line. Our plan for the second one was to replace the older TV stand with this tower. The bottom row will house the media in the red Lekman boxes.

Before

My problem with the Lekman boxes is that they are clear-ish. You can still see all of the shadows and even colors of the items inside. And boy are there a lot of items inside! Another issue I have been having is seeing the cords behind the top row. I am not sure why there are so many cords…

Solution.

Get a 5th LEKMAN.