ikea hacks make joe's fabulous car room a reality

on their own, they are nothing fabulous but this is where the phrase 'the sum of its parts is greater than its whole' really comes true. a couple of well-placed ikea hacks transform joe kelly jr's basement into a fabulous car room.

joe tells me, "i have a model car collection in my basement, and i wanted to build in some display space, add a couple pieces of 'utility' furniture, and do it on the cheap.

first was the display cabinets against the wall. i used billy cases, but i had to shorten them to fit into the space i was intending to use. i also added a slew of new shelf-mounting holes (man, talk about math! getting the new holes into the 'rhythm' of the old ones wasn't easy). i tossed the backing that came with the cabinets, and installed corrugated steel (just like the stuff used throughout the rest of the room). i glued and screwed the sections together and mounted them into the wall space. then i added a combination of halogen and fluorescent lighting.

second was the table/support for the glass case in the center of the room. i used an ikea sofa table, added in an additional shelf, boxed the legs with ikea shelves cut to size, then ran wire under the floor and added an electrical outlet underneath, for the built-in slot car track power supply. i secured the glass display case for more models above it all.

the reason i have a slot car power supply is that the ceiling lowers down, revealing a slot car track. i built that, too, but it wouldn't have worked if not for the twin ikea coffee tables i bashed together at the front of the room. i used two square tables (silver and black) which i cut to size, doweled and glued together, and attached to a sturdy plywood base with casters. i topped the table with rubber floor matting. this table does double duty; when the track is up, it's a coffee table. when i want to lower the track, i stand the table on end, and it supports the forward section of the platform.

there's a couple of ways to see it. one is to go to my web site: another is to watch the 'Look What I Did' segment below."