The Solarium is Gone!

So this is exciting: I think I’m done tearing additions off this house! Forever! Tearing off entire structures like the mudroom last year and the second floor bay window this year is, as you might imagine, kind of a big deal. The payoff of restoring at least a close resemblance of the original construction is super exciting, even when it technically means sacrificing a little square footage, but the process can be a little…intense. Which is to say, I’m glad I don’t have to do this kind of thing anymore. We already demo’d the interior of the one-time solarium down to the studs, so it was time to actually get this non-original thing off my house once and for all!

This started with the roof, which was a total mess. I intentionally didn’t have this roof redone when the rest of the roof was replaced almost 3 years ago because I was pretty sure I’d be taking this addition down soon enough. “Soon enough” ended up being a little longer than I thought it would be, so for three years this thing has been hanging off the side of my house, leaking every time it rained (despite efforts here and there to patch certain areas) and looking super nasty.

While the tear-off was going on, a neighbor strolled over and told me that the previous owner would go out onto this roof every single year and smear on a new layer of tar, so this is literally FORTY YEARS of tar-build up that we had to remove! In some areas it was about 3″ thick and EXTREMELY heavy, even when broken into small pieces. Poor house. I gotcha.

The rusty stuff you’re seeing underneath was what was left of the original metal roofing. It’s so corroded that it basically fell apart like an old newspaper.

Underneath that you can see what’s left of the roof sheathing, some of the framing, and the original box gutters. If you need a toothpick or something to jump-start your compost pile, I guess this might be good? But as a roof it was not so good.

On top of it all, you can see Edwin striking one of his sexy poses.

In credit to all the rot, the roof came down fairly quickly and easily. Look! Sky! Cool.

If you can decipher a little of what’s going on with the framing here, you can tell that it’s not so good. The window framing is far from sound, and the entire roof structure was being held up by some short lengths of very rotted 2×4 studs, resting on a horizontal 2×4  stud, and the roof rafters were being supported by…

THIS. Part of the reason I really wanted to get this done NOW was because I feared that the amount of weight in tar, combined with a heavy snow-load might result in this thing literally collapsing. Which would turn its demolishing from an exciting decision I made during a semi-convenient time of year into a huge nightmare.

This is also part of why just tearing this non-original component off the house entirely made a lot more sense than trying to restore it. Bad roof, bad foundation, bad walls, no original windows left…if it had even been possible to salvage, it would have demanded a ton of serious structural work and money and that just never seemed remotely worth it.

We removed almost the entire cornice in one enormous piece which I dragged into the backyard. We’ll harvest various trim pieces and corbels from it in order to build the cornice on the new formerly-missing third side of that first floor bay window! Because the solarium was added onto the bay window, the cornice on the other side and front of the bay remained totally intact! Yay! We do still have to do some roof framing and put a new roof on the bay window, so don’t be fooled! Lots of work ahead.

We took down the walls section by section, using some quick temporary bracing to keep it all from just collapsing onto the sidewalk or back onto the house.

My dining room is looking pretty torn apart obviously, but even with just the solarium’s roof removed, the newfound amount of LIGHT in this space—which has always been fairly dark—was thrilling. I’m still shocked every time I walk in there by how bright it is now that the window faces the outdoors instead of into the super yucky solarium. It’s a really dramatic change in real life. It’s hard to get the same sense in the kitchen because it basically no longer has walls or a ceiling so the light gets swallowed up, but I’m sure it’ll be one VERY bright space when it’s put back together.

The entire demo from start to finish only took about 4 or 5 hours, and we even had the truck loaded and off to the dump before they closed at 3 PM. Teamwork!

So…EEK! This is the first time I was actually able to get a good sense of how the house would look with the solarium torn off. The new kitchen windows were making me nervous without being able to really see them in relation to the rest of the house and the dormer window above them.

I’m getting used to them. They’re 4.5 feet tall, and they look so little! I think the real problem is that I just don’t like that dormer window (it just feels so out of scale with that back part of the house, and the shed roof and the fact that it’s flush with the exterior wall and interrupts the cornice is kinda just all wrong). I wish the new kitchen windows were closer in size to the rest of the first floor windows on the front section of the house, but it felt like the most natural solution was to match the header height of the other windows (so the tops would all align) and shorten them because this is, after all, a kitchen and I need to be practical and be able to fit a countertop under the bottom of the windows. Ya dig? I think it would be nice to put window boxes below those two kitchen windows, too…both to visually elongate them and because, ya know, herbs and stuff!

Honestly, once everything is put back together and painted and done, I’m sure I won’t even be thinking about this anymore. It’s FINE. The front part of the house is the real showpiece here, anyway, and that’s going to look goooooood.

LOL LOL here is a half-hearted attempt to Photoshop the previous picture into a better idea of where things are headed, so we can all stay motivated. You don’t have to pretend that it’s very effective or convincing but WHATEVER, at least you can see where the windows go and stuff. The real thing will be significantly better looking, I promise.

It’s starting to get cold, which is freaking me out. Pls pray.

The Solarium is Gone! published first on manhattan-nest.com

Bathroom tray for small items

IKEA item used: 2 covers from the 2-piece DRAGAN bathroom dish set, bamboo

The DRAGAN bathroom set comes in 2 pieces – a deeper box and a shallow tray which works as the cover for the box. We decided to use the cover as a tray for all the small things in the bathroom but we didn’t have space on the countertop. All we did was drill holes in the 2 DRAGAN covers and screwed them to the wall. Works well and all our small items can be in one place.

~ by Paola Camino, Italy

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7 easy steps to transform an IKEA stool into a cute table

I propose to you to transform a piece of furniture that almost everybody has in their homes, the FROSTA stool from IKEA.

Materials:

- An IKEA FROSTA stool
- Spray paint
- Drill
- Cork
- Paper tape
- Double-sided tape
- Sandpaper
- Compass

Budget:

Approximately 40€

Steps:

If your stool is already assembled, disassemble it. If you bought it to make this tutorial then unpack it and let’s go!

Draw a circle on the back and on the center of the tray of your future table. This circle is going to help you to position the legs in a triangle. Once the position of the legs is defined, draw their outlines.

The legs of your stool already have their holes, so mark their location on the back of the tray.

Now drill the holes in the back of the tray. If you are afraid of drilling through the tray, then you can do this: insert the bit in an existing hole in the back of the tray, and wrap adhesive tape around the bit to mark the place where you will have to stop drilling.

Screw the legs in the back of the tray using the material supplied with the stool.

Sand the tray and the legs. This will remove the layer of varnish, and the paint which you will apply will have a better hold.

Protect the edge of the tray with the paper tape.

If you want that your table seems to wear socks, then delimit an area of 8 centimeters in height on each leg. Cover these zones with the paper tape to protect them from the paint.

With the paper tape recover the screws of your table.

Prepare the place where you are going to paint, outside or in a well ventilated basement. Protect the floor as well as the walls or the objects in the surroundings with newspaper, cardboard or plastic. The particles of paint could settle there and damage the place, so protect it well! You can also wear a mask, gloves and clothes which you can make dirty.

Position your table with the top of the tray against the ground so that the paint does not get on it.

Spray a coat of primer. The primer is a base which we apply to surfaces to be painted to make them smooth and uniform. Let it dry for 2 to 4 hours, according to the temperature and the humidity of the environment.

Spray one or two coats of paint. Let the first coat dry for 30 minutes, then spray the second coat. Let it dry again for 30 minutes or more depending on your environment.

Finally spray a coat of satin clear varnish and let it dry for 24 hours.

You can use paint nozzles of different sizes. Here I used a nozzle, which allows a fine spray, ideal for spraying the thin legs of our table.

Using the template above, cut seventeen scales from your cork. The eighteenth scale will measure a little bit more than 6 centimeters in width. When the 17 scales are set, measure the exact width of the eighteenth.

I used cork with a thickness of 2 millimeters, but you can choose a thicker cork. Be sure to handle the cork carefully, it is a fragile material.

Remove the paper tape from the table and place the double-sided adhesive tape on the edge of the tray.

Stick every scale edge-to-edge on the edge of the tray.

Turn the table over on the cork. Mark the outline of the tray with a pen, and then cut the circle.

Stick the double-sided tape on the top of the tray and place the circle of cork on it.

And voilà, you can admire your new table!

The former stool totally disappeared! We changed the positioning of the legs, so this table is not made to put your bottom there! But a good hot chocolate, books or decoration will find a nice place there!

See the complete tutorial on my blog.

~ by Sylvaine Beaudeux

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Spotted: GEMAK street lights

Not my hack, but I noticed these lights in front of a deli at the beach of Wenduine (Belgium) that clearly consist of hacked GEMAK colanders. They can also be seen in this Google streetview.

~ T-Fork

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BESTÅ + MORIK Wireless Charging Station

Ikea Items used: BESTÅ unit (1200 x 400 x 740), MORIK Wireless Charger, GLIS box with lid (optional)

As part of a wider plan to redecorate my lounge in August of this year, I decided I wanted to add a charging station (including wireless charging pad) to satisfy the growing number of devices in my house which regularly need charging. IKEA currently offers a number of lamps and bedside tables which contain wireless charging pads – none of these I felt were appropriate for my lounge so instead I decided to buy the MORIK wireless charging unit. The description of the MORIK suggests it needs to be completed with a SELJE or NORDLI bedside table, but I intended to install it on my existing BESTÅ  unit (which has been pressed into service as a TV unit).

First drill a 56mm diameter hole in the top of the BESTÅ unit (I set the hole at 200mm from each edge of the BESTÅ to avoid existing screws and support strips).

Once I had drilled my hole it became apparent why Ikea recommend the MORIK only be used with the suggested pieces of furniture. The charging pad was sat too deep in the top of the BESTÅ unit to do any charging whatsoever (I already knew this would be the case as I had previously measured the depth of the unit).

To get the MORIK to work I would have to cut away the underside of the existing unit – this proved easy as the unit top is hollow and the material used to make the underside was thin enough to be cut with a very sharp Stanley knife (watch your fingers!). Once the shape was cut (and the cardboard webbing removed) I padded out the inside with some offcuts of 18mm skirting board, inserted the MORIK unit and attached it to the skirting board offcuts with some 15mm screws.

The finished result looks great, a wireless charger which sits seamlessly in my unit underneath my wall-mounted TV. The MORIK also has an in built USB port underneath it which is still accessible from within the BESTÅ unit – I complimented this with a GLIS box full of USB cables for charging devices that currently don’t have wireless charging.

~ by murfilicious

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Ideas for a great little kitchen

Datum
- A quite numerous extended family from 10 to 15 people at the same table (a sort of Bradford Family as customer!)
- A small holiday home
- A tiny kitchen (dim. L200cm x W180cm)
- The entrance on the lower wall
- A window at 70 cm height from the ground
- A free-standing dishwasher

Requirement
• A minimum of 5 gas rings, 1 oven, 1 sink, kitchenware and food stock storage
• Space for 2 – 3 persons at the same time preparing meals
• Be able to open the window

Solution
Cooking area
• 3 items H80cm x D40cm
• 3 hobs L29cm, with 5 hotplates amount

Sink area
• 1 item L60CM x D60cm x H80cm,
• 1 item L20cm x D60cm x H80cm,
• The free-standing dishwasher
• 1 item L60CM x D60cm x H60cm for the oven

Food stock
• 140 cm wall unit consisting of: 1 item L60CM x D40cm x H40cm + 1 item L80cm x D40cm x H40cm
• 16 cubic L30cm x D20cm x H30CM
• 3 bottle holder

Ikea items used:
The kitchen’s items are METOD with BROKHULT doors; the worktop and the shelf are KARLBY, the cook tops are MOJLIG, the little wall units are FORHOJA, the bottle holders are VURM, the sink is LANGUDDEN and the faucet is RINGSKAR, the grid for air exchange are VARIERA

Now we can even feed an army.

~ by Silvia

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Wood Storage rack (or Surfboard Rack)

IKEA items used: PELLO armchair

Take the two legs from the chair and fix to the wall using Expansion Bolts. And Voilà!

~ by Brendan Gill

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Hack an IVAR Murphy bed

Items used

• IVAR system
• 1 Bed (in this case 120;200 cm)
• 1 office table (in this case a wooden kitchen table)
• 4 individual shelves (in this case bought at the lumberyard)
• 1 MDF board (in this case 6 mm thek. caution, this adds weight when puling up and down)
• Blackboard paint
• 2 Bed feet
• 2 bolts (to act as hinges)
• 2 rails (bolts can slide in)

The need for a multi-functional room quickly arose in your small Copenhagen apartment. The outcome was an office/guest room which turned out to work really well.

With an old bed and a kitchen table in hand and some leftover IVAR sections the idea was born.

A quick stop at the lumber yard to get hinges, and four shelves in different measurements and we got started.

To make the IVAR section look as an integrated part of the not so wide office table (kitchen table) I had to modify the standard IVAR shelves to fit the width of the office table. I took the side rail off and cut to fit and reattached the side rail. Now that section was done and it was time to build the Murphy bed.

I made the bed hinges over two aksels (bolts) which can slide in a rail. This makes the bed able to slide all the way against the wall when the bed is pulled down.

The wide shelf on top is attached between two IVAR sections by hacking side rails from a leftover IVAR shelf.

The bench is build up by three shelves bought at the lumber yard and modified to fit into the IVAR section. The bench also works as storage room for the bed feet, duvets etc.

To make it office-like I made a blackboard on the bottom off the bed which will appear when the bed is folded up.

~ by Martin Vester

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