Customised Ikea Billy

Materials: Billy, Paint

Description: We didn’t want a plain white shelf in our living room as we were afraid that it appeared to ‘cold’. So the goal was to choose a background colour that underlined the warm colours of our room but still made a modern impression. Strangely, in the end my wife and I chose an olivish green (with a yellow proportion).

As we had three 80cm Billys and two 40cm ones to the sides, I experienced a different backwall material what made it necessary to paint the small ones with 3 layers. The bigger ones were painted twice. Should you want to try it on your own, make sure you put a cloth around the fixed shelves while putting in the backwall as for protection of the colour. You can easiliy rip them out afterwards.

It took me some considerable time as the colour needed to dry out over night but after three days it was worth the wait.

~ Marc Bellin, Zurich, Switzerland