How I hacked a classic IKEA Bestå HiFi Storage Cabinet

Besta Media/Hi-Fi Furniture

I made this Media/HiFi Storage Furniture using an IKEA Bestå and some furniture board.

I wanted this furniture to have a natural and basic yet modern look. The furniture board was therefore kept untreated (no oil, wax or paint, raw edges and some irregularities). The fact that the board pieces were put together with slight sloppiness (a millimeter mismatch or so) adds to the simplicity of the furniture. The Bestå from IKEA make up for the modern part of the creation.

If a tighter and smoother look is preferred, this would probably not cause a lot more work since furniture board (which in my case was made from spruce), is very easy to work with.

IKEA Besta Media/Hi-Fi Furniture

This is the end result. Noticeable is the slight mismatch (small spacing) in each joint.

Top left view.

A close up showing the finish of the furniture with the untreated furniture board. Notice that the doors sit a bit “deeper” than the wood material surrounding them. This accentuates the wood in a nice way and creates a very distinct frame around the doors.

Front view of my BESTA Hifi storage cabinet IKEA furniture

Front view.

Front view on my BESTA Hifi storage cabinet IKEA furniture

Another front view.

Supplies needed for my hifi storage furniture

  • IKEA Bestå with doors
  • Furniture board from any kind of tree (mine were made from spruce).
  • Some leather handles, or whatever handles you like 😉

Some complementary information on how I made my version of this media furniture is given below.

Bestå Media/ HiFi Storage Furniture

The plates were glued onto the Bestå like this.

The width of the board I used was 50 cm (the Bestå is 40 cm deep). The choice of a wider board makes the furniture deeper, which in my case was needed in order to make room for a large amplifier.

I let the top board overlaps the sides (making them as long as the Bestå plus two times the thickness of the furniture board). The same goes for the bottom part of the furniture. Some smaller pieces of wood, like the small one on top of the furniture (in the picture above) were cut out from the original board (2.5 x 0.5 m, 2 pcs). These were used in order to make brackets for the furniture (seen in pictures above).

That’s it folks! 🙂