Upcycled Brusali shoe cabinet

Upcycled Brusali shoe cabinet using old floorboards

IKEA items used: Brusali

After having my Brusali shoe cabinet a few months I felt it looked a little plain and I wanted to make it looked a bit more interesting. I went to my local reclamation yard and bought an old floorboard, but a pretty thick one as you can see from the pictures.

Tip – Try and buy ones without/the least nails in.

I cut two pieces of the floorboard down to the size I wanted to go on top of the Brusali, scraped off the dirt on the joints using a stripping/filling knife and then glued the pieces together to create the top.

Next I sanded down all sides of the new top to get through all the dirt and down to the grain. Two coats of Ronseal wood varnish and it looked great.

Attaching the new top. Undo the locking caps for the screws that hold the top of Brusali in place and remove the top. To fix new top I didn’t want to stick four wood screws through the new top into the sides of the Brusali. So I took the locking screws out of the old Brusali top and drilled through the (pictured) so they went all the way through. I then used the old Brusali top as a template to drill the holes in the new top (make sure you use a drill bit a few sizes smaller than the hole).

drilling new holes for the lockings screws

Use a drill bit a few size smaller than the locking screw

Screwed locking screws into the new top flipped it over and pushed the locking screws into the existing holes in the Brusali unit and re-tightened the locking caps. Alas the new top wasn’t quite level because of a knot in the wood, so there is a small gap between the new top and the Brusali (pictured), nothing a bit of sanding and re-varnishing can’t solve (but best get it right 1st time).

Upcycled Brusali shoe cabinet using old floorboards

Upcycled Brusali shoe cabinet using old floorboards

~ Hacked by Shaun