Tuesday, October 31, 2017

Have you seen these IKEA dollhouse furniture? They’re like the real thing!

An IKEAHackers reader, dteleki, recently discovered a wonderful YouTube vlogger, Cath of “The Square To Spare” and alerted us to her amazing work. Cath’s channel specializes in videos showing how to build dollhouse furniture and accessories. And of course, dolls need IKEA furniture in their homes too. Here are a few that caught our eye.

IKEA MICKE desk

Dollhouse furniture IKEA MICKE desk

IKEA STORA loft bed

Dollhouse furniture IKEA STORA loft bed

IKEA LACK coffee tables

Dollhouse furniture LACK coffee table

IKEA FINNVARD trestle desk

Dollhouse furniture IKEA FINNVARD trestle desk

IKEA MOPPE storage chest

Dollhouse furniture IKEA MOPPE storage chest

There are also other modernist-style items that are NOT based on IKEA items, but that would harmonize with them in a modernist-style dollhouse:

Miniature industrial modern bookshelf

DIY miniature dining set

Miniature modern bed 

There are many other fun videos too. Even a haunted house, in time for today.  My personal favourite is the typewriter, miniature iMac and violin. Do check out Cath’s channel. Be warned, you’ll be hooked.

Photos: The Square to Spare Youtube Channel

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Monday, October 30, 2017

Simple Malm Dresser Upgrade

Living in a city studio apartment requires lots of creativity. With minimal tools, I’ve created a modern looking dresser with very little time and money!

Materials:

I assembled this 6 drawer MALM dresser as indicated on the instructions.

MALM dresser 6-drawer

Photo: IKEA.com

Before installing the top, I wrapped it with faux marble contact paper. It gives the dresser a nice contrast and pop!

Then I made a template for the drawer handles. I took IKEA kitchen cabinet handles and screwed them on the facade of each drawer.

Make sure to drill pilot holes where each handles are located to prevent any cracks.

I took something simple and made something extraordinary. What do you think?

Simple Malm Dresser Upgrade with Marble top

~ by Ken Caton

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Sunday, October 29, 2017

#70: The Craziness Behind Our Rachael Ray Show Appearance

Our week was sent into a tailspin when we got a last-minute invitation to appear on The Rachael Ray Show, and within 24 hours we were on a plane to New York so we could DIY in front of a live studio audience the very next morning. As you can imagine, we have some pretty hilarious stories from behind the scenes (it turns out Rachael Ray was NOT trying to hug Sherry) and the whole adventure was bookended by two other big beach house milestones: moving furniture in and spending our first night there! So we’re sharing how that went – and what woke us up at 6am – plus we’re learning the hardest pieces of IKEA furniture to assemble (who knew?! WE DID!). We also dive into our favorite blog for getting into the Halloween spirit, and we share what store is actually making some pretty great mass-produced art these days.

You can download this episode from Apple PodcastsGoogle PlayStitcher, and TuneIn Radio – or listen to it below! Then use this page to check out any links, notes, or photos we referenced. Note: If you’re reading in a feed reader, you might have to click through to the post to see the player. 

What’s New

  • You can see more of what our beach house looked like in the video and photos we posted last week, so instead, I’ll use these show notes to give you a sense of how the week went down.

  • It was a whirlwind for sure. By the time the beach house weekend was over we thought we might have just imagined the whole Rachael Ray Show thing. But more on that in a second…

Quiz

The Rachael Ray Show

  • If you missed the clip on Friday, you can watch some of it here on the show’s website. That clip doesn’t include the in-studio portion where we demonstrated two projects: how to install a stair runner, and how to make an upholstered headboard, but you can check out our old posts with that info here and here.
  • Above is that photo we mentioned that caught Rachael at a moment where she wasn’t her usually bubbly self. I think I’d look the same if I was taping my 3rd show of the day!
  • And further up you saw Sherry prepping the stair runner backstage, but below is a peek at us building the headboard in our dressing room. It was tight quarters for such a large project, but we got it done!
  • And for anyone wondering where we got that runner or the headboard fabric, here’s the blue stair runner we used and here’s the shibori headboard fabric.

We’re Digging

  • You can see some of them in action hanging in our beach house in this post. Like the glass-mounted beach photo hanging in the back bedroom where we slept for our first two nights there:

To see other beach house sources (lighting, bedding, etc) they’re all listed at the end of this post.

And if you’re looking for something we’ve dug in a past episode, but don’t remember which show notes to click into, here’s a master list of everything we’ve been digging from all of our past episodes.

And lastly, a big thank you to Cardboard Safari for sponsoring this episode. You can get 20% off your first order with the code YHL20 at http://ift.tt/2gegl2P. Also below I’ve included that photo of some of Leah Yellowbird’s amazing art using the cardboard as her canvas.

Thanks for listening, guys!

*This post contains affiliate links*

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Friday, October 27, 2017

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider

I recently got myself an open studio loft, so I finally had a chance to get creative. I wanted to share my massive IKEA KALLAX room divider, but more specifically, my hide-away TV that doubles as an art piece (with the added feature of allowing me to choose to watch TV in the living room or the bed room).

Ingredients:

  • KALLAX 5×5 (primary)
  • 2x KALLAX 2×4
  • KALLAX 2.5×4
  • KALLAX 4×4
  • BESTÅ 2×1
  • Various KALLAX accessories

Room Divider

The first goal of the project was to make a room divider to divide the living space from the bed area and utilize the height of the apartment. Overall the concept was easy and mostly just required me to go on several Craigslist runs to acquire my Tetris pieces. The core is a standard 5×5 KALLAX with other KALLAX pieces anchored to it. Having each piece anchored together along with the right-angles they form makes the structure safe and sturdy despite its height.

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider
View from living room

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider
View from bedroom

TV Insert

I knew I wanted my TV to be embedded in the KALLAX, but the 5×5 model that IKEA sells with a TV cut-out is centered, which would not work with the arrangement I wanted for the KALLAX components. I was able to find a good deal on a standard 5×5 and then it was as simple as selecting the one shelf to cut and removing the spare shelves from that region.

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider

KALLAX Hide-away TV & Cascading Room Divider

Hide-away TV (& Viewing in 2 rooms)

Now that I had the spot for my TV cut-out, I wanted a way to hide my TV so it wasn’t the center-point of the living space as you walked in. In addition, I was looking for an easy way to switch between playing video games on the couch and watching movies from the bed — so the only natural thing was to build in a swivel that would let me do both!

1. I acquired a standard low-profile lazy susan from Amazon and centered it on the shelf that the TV would rest on.

2. Then, I re-used the leftover shelf piece that was cut and I trimmed it further so that it could spin on the lazy susan without hitting the edges of the nook.

3. A 1-inch diameter hole was then drilled through the center of both shelves to pipe the various cords through the center of the rotation point to make things spin cleaner.

4. A cheap wall bracket was mounted to the TV, and I used an extra piece of thin plywood to act as a backing “wall” for the TV and art to go on the other side.

5. The final step was to adjust the mounting bracket and hang the art up on the back of the TV to make sure it all spins correctly and it was properly aligned. The addition of this bracket makes alignment and access to wires behind the TV a snap if needed.

Lots of fun doing this project, plus it looks great and is functional for my living space — all I was hoping for. Hope you like the project and please let me know if you have any questions!

~ by Blake Reeves

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Thursday, October 26, 2017

Cross stitch table lamp: IKEA LAMPAN upgrade

The LAMPAN lamp is a classic and one of the cheapest table lamp at IKEA. Coming in at a mere $5.99. It recently got a long overdue update — with new colours (gold, silver and blue) and a LED version ($9.99).

IKEA Lampan becomes cross stitch table lamp

If it’s still a little plain for you, it’s easy to embellish. Anat used cross stitch and added a pretty flower motif to an otherwise bland lamp shade. Here’s how she did it:

***

Materials:

Tools:

1. I copied the embroidery pattern on a piece of paper.

Attach the cross stitch pattern onto the lamp

Cross stitch table lamp IKEA lampan hack

2. I attached the pattern to the lamp using cellophane tape.

3. I drilled holes at the four corners of every X of the embroidery pattern. I used a 1.5 mm. drill bit.

Drill the holes for the cross stitch

Cross stitch table lamp IKEA lampan hack

4. I gave it a gentle sanding (used my Dremel, but you can do it by hand) to gently scrub off the left over bits from drilling. It sanded it both from the out side and from inside the lampshade.

Cross stitch table lamp IKEA lampan hack

5. I added the embroidery using regular embroidery floss and a needle.

Cross stitch table lamp IKEA lampan hack

Cross stitch table lamp IKEA lampan hack

Turn on the light and enjoy your work!

~ by Anat


Other ideas for the IKEA LAMPAN lamp

LAMPAN chandelier

Bet you didn’t know that this lowly table lamp can be turned into a chic chandelier. You’ll need at least 6 LAMPAN lamps to make one. See the instructions.

mushroom lamp for kids

This little switcheroo is perfect for the nursery. And best of all: you can do it together with your little ones. A cute mushroom lamp that is very easy and fun to make. Read more.

LAMPAN shade drilled

Another idea is just to drill a motif onto the shade itself. No embroidery required. Read more.


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Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Hackers Help: Suggest a behind Sofa Room Divider and Bookcase

Hi,

I really like this idea for a room divider and extra book storage.

Sofa Room Divider Bookcase

Source 

Can anyone suggest a bookshelf that will go behind the IKEA KIVIK sofa?

BESTÅ is out of my price range, and KALLAX isn’t long enough.

Any other ideas?

Thanks for your help.

K

***

Hi K

Since the BESTÅ is out of the price range, let’s look at more affordable pieces. As for KALLAX (or if you can score an old EXPEDIT), you could try this

The narrow BILLY bookshelf is a possibility. But you’ll need to do a bit of hacking. Lay the BILLY bookshelf on the side. If it’s not long enough for your sofa, add a BILLY extension. Secure the extension to the short side of the BILLY. Then wrap the entire BILLY with MDF. Add casters to the bottom. It does not look exactly the same as your inspiration photo but it makes a lovely room divider bookcase too.

This project is featured in the IKEAhackers book.

Sofa Room Divider Bookcase

Another option would be use a few LACK TV units to get the length that you want. Use straight brackets at various points on the legs to secure the units to each other.

Sofa Room Divider Bookcase with LACK TV bench

Then add on ply wood panels to cover the top half of the back of the units to get the similar effect as the inspiration photo.

Third idea would be to try it with the HYLLIS shelving unit like this.

HYLLIS sofa room divider bookcase

Soffia’s version gives the Restoration Hardware/Pottery Barn-ish industrial vibe. But you can certainly style it for a more Scandinavian look. Read more.

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Tuesday, October 24, 2017

The Beach House Has Furniture!

If you guys follow us on Instagram or Facebook, you’ve already heard the news: not only does the beach house officially have furniture (!!!) we finally got the spend the night there this past weekend! Two nights, in fact!

It’s still a far cry from “done.” There’s a lot of remaining furniture that we need to get (nightstands, dressers, headboards, a top for our coffee table, etc) along with various other decor stuff that’s missing (rugs! art! lamps!). Not to mention some bigger tasks like installing the kitchen, adding built-in bunk beds upstairs, and constructing bench seating in the breakfast nook. But even so, just having some furniture (a couch! beds to sleep on!) and flushing toilets & working showers feels like a HUGE MILESTONE in this year-long renovation. Especially when you consider how things looked last October when we bought it:

We spent a couple of days there this weekend unpacking, arranging, and making lists of what we still need to move and/or shop for, and I stole a few minutes on our way out to make a big ol’ video tour of our progress. This video is not short, but I really wanted to show you guys every nook and cranny (including one I’ve never shown before that some of you have asked to see!). I also explain what else is on the list, why we chose some of the stuff we did, and share a general rundown of what’s happening in each room. We’ll cover some of the details via photographs in this post, but the video has allll of the juicy details for ya, so it’s worth coming back to watch if you’re somewhere that you can’t watch it right now. Note: If you’re viewing this in a reader, you may need to click through to see the video player.

Last Sunday we loaded up a 15′ U-Haul packed with furniture, all of our flat-packed Ikea kitchen boxes, and our pink stove! These things have all been stealing space in our own house over the last several months so it was so exciting to stuff that truck with everything and finally get it out to the beach house. It was a mix of some new buys, a lot of thrifted finds, and even some leftovers from our previous rooms. Hi green office chairs from our second house! (You can hear my ideas for them in the video) 

Then on the Monday after packing the truck, we drove it out to Cape Charles and spent a few hours unloading it and arranging things. But it wasn’t until we went back again this past weekend for our first two overnights that it actually started to feel like we were making progress. The entryway is probably the most “settled” feeling space of the house thus far (look ma! we hung a mirror!) since we knew it would help the whole place feel more finished if the first thing you see from the front door looks nice.

Don’t mind that wood railing that still needs some love to get all of the marks off it. Our to-do list is longer than Santa’s toy list at this point, but we’re slowly chipping away at things – like that house number you see reflected in the mirror that we proudly added to our transom window (more on that in a minute).

Just beyond the foyer, the kitchen is still looking pretty nuts. The kitchen cabinets, counters, and even the sink and microwave are in approximately 243 still to-be-opened boxes. So right now there’s just a mountain of cardboard that’s hiding behind my chorus line of stools (you know I took great joy in lining them up just to imagine them sitting happily behind the island that’ll be there someday). One coup is that the stove is in place and even installed!

As expected, the stove was a beast to move. In Richmond, it took me and John and a few other neighbors (plus a dolly! plus a ramp!) to get it up on the truck. And when we arrived in Cape Charles, our contractor kindly sent over a couple of his guys to help us get it into the house. Looking at this picture makes me so itchy to start building cabinets, you don’t even know.

The big progress upstairs was beds, glorious beds! We slept on air mattresses the first night, so when the truck full of mattresses, boxsprings, and frames arrived the next morning, it felt even more legit to spend the second night in actual beds. We got three queen mattresses and two twin extra long mattresses (for the bunk room) delivered from the same place we bought our own house’s guest room mattress and our daughter’s mattress, The Original Mattress Factory. We get compliments on the guest room bed all the time (it’s 6 years old and still feels great!) and we lay in our daughter’s bed all the time and it’s awesome – even when all four of us are piled in there.

It was only $1,800 to get all five mattresses for the beach house, including two boxsprings, two frames, and delivery! When they told me the price on the phone I was pretty sure they were doing the math wrong (I expected to pay at least $500 per bed, which meant $2500 at least plus other fees), but they’re just super affordable and well made with inner springs and high durability testing and all that stuff. They’re also rotatable (it’s surprising how many new mattresses aren’t) so we think that’ll help us get maximum life out of them.

We’re using good ol’ Ed the Bed in this middle bedroom above (for now at least) which means the mattress rests on a wooden platform, but the other two bedrooms got the full frames-and-boxsprings treatment. And the twin extra long mattresses in the bunk room will eventually get built into a sweet little bunk bed that runs wall to wall along that left side of the room, which the kids are especially excited for. We’re just excited that our measurements were correct and the mattresses fit perfectly in that space. Phew!

The most put together bedroom so far is the master bedroom in the back of the house, where John and I slept both nights. We arrived with fresh bedding and assembled the nightstands during our first morning there and even hung some art (we’re gonna source everything for you at the bottom of this post, so scroll down for that). There’s still a lot more to do (still need a headboard, rug, dresser, and the bed is too low for the nightstands so we’re going to raise it) but it was remarkably relaxing to sleep in here even without all that stuff.

I’ll admit that we were both holding our breaths a little on this room. We worried the bed would feel cramped and too close to the pocket doors (it doesn’t!) and that having pocket doors in front of the back stairs might be weird (they ended up being incredibly charming!) so there have been a whole lot of sighs of relief in here. It’s so so hard to picture a room when it’s framed out, and even when it’s drywalled it’s hard to tell if something is cramped or weirdly proportioned until furniture comes in and it’s all suddenly clear.

Our stay wasn’t flawless by any means though. None of the door latches are installed, so no interior doors stay completely closed yet. We remembered to bring shower curtains and liners, but forgot the hooks, so we all showered without the curtain, which wasn’t ideal, but thankfully wasn’t too splashy. And we didn’t like the upstairs blinds we had bought, so we relied on some scrap cardboard to cover the windows at night… ha! It really was kind of like camping. Maybe more like glamping because we had running water and mattresses.

Also, look at that old character in the wood floor above. I kept spying so many sweet things like that while we stayed overnight and my heart would just swell with excitement. We worried that having to rebuild so much of this house might strip out a lot of the old charm, but getting to refinish the old pine floors and reuse the original molding and doors is such a treat. All that 1920s charm (like the back staircase and the stained glass windows and the curved wall in the foyer) really do make this house feel old and special.

We see a lot of weekends like this in our future. Spending a night or two while trying to cross a few items off our to-do list (and mix in a little bit of family fun at the same time). It was even hot enough to go to the beach on this trip and actually swim! We also got to trim down a too-tall door in the bunk room, we added a bunch of door stops behind doors that were banging against our freshly painted walls and trim, and we put up those aforementioned house numbers in the transom window, which also felt like a super momentous milestone.

To hang these vintage looking decals we ordered online, John created some guides with green painter’s tape on the inside of the glass (marking the center, pasting up a level baseline, etc) that we could follow while carefully applying the decals from the outside and smoothing them out with a credit card as we went from bottom to top. They weren’t easily repositionable so we both just kind of held our breath as they went on, but they look great. And after months of telling people “it’s the pink house with the dumpster out front” or whatever weird description we had been using at the time, we finally got to tell the mattress delivery people “it’s 119” because IT FINALLY HAD HOUSE NUMBERS!

We LOVE how they turned out, although we’re considering ordering another “9” and placing it slightly more to the right (because we are crazy people who obsess over tracking and kerning thanks to all of our advertising years). Even though they’re technically spaced equally, we think the 9 looks a little close because it’s a fuller number than the 1, which has a lot of space on either side of the serif. We’re probably being insane, but we acknowledge and accept this obsessive letter and number spacing quirk that was instilled in us many years ago.

So again, if you want to see lots more of our progress, scroll up to watch the video (you basically get to walk through every cranny of the house and hear our plans for what we’re changing or thinking of adding). Things are moving so quickly over there lately that we’re having fun using Instagram (and Instagram Stories) to share things in real-time when we can. Of course, the blog is still the best place for super meaty info, links, and videos, like the walk-through tour in today’s post – so no worries if you’re not an Instagram person, it’ll all end up here eventually, and with a lot more detail.

And since we’ve been getting a lot of source questions as we share those little sneak peeks, below is a quick round-up of all of the items in the video and these photos. What this doesn’t include of course, are things that are secondhand since we can’t link to those (like the wood dresser in the foyer above) or things that have been discontinued (like our Ikea Karlstad sectional in the living room).

1. Living Room Art / 2. Kitchen Stool (similar) / 3. Chair Version of Kitchen Stools / 4. Front Bedroom Art / 5. Walls (SW White Heron) / 6. Downstairs Trim (SW Stone Isle) / 7. Upstairs Trim (SW Pure White) / 8. Tub & Pocket Doors (SW Riverway) / 9. Foyer Mirror / 10. Hall Bath Tile / 11. Hall Bath Vanity / 12. Downstairs Bath Mirror / 13. Downstairs Bath Vanity / 14. Master Bath Mirror / 15. Hall Bedding / 16. Master Bedside Lamps / 17. Master Bedroom Art / 18. Master Bath Tile / 18. Master Bath Accent Tile / 20. Master Nightstands / 21. Master Bedding

And here’s the lighting round-up from a few posts ago, for anyone wondering about those links/sources. Also, update: we love the fans! Sleeping with it on low in that back bedroom was pretty dang great.

vintage rustic lighting mood board

1. Front Porch / 2. Downstairs Bath / 3. Kitchen Island / 4. Porch Numbers 5. Foyer (similar) / 6. Bedrooms / 7. Kitchen Sconces / 8. Living & Master Bath 9. Mudroom / 10. Clear, Soft White LED Bulbs / 11. Dining / 12. Master Bath 13. Hall Bath / 14. Hallway & Small Upstairs Rooms / 15. Under Stairs

So there it is. A whole lotta beach house goodness. We can’t wait to share these rooms as they evolve. Just imagine a kitchen with cabinets! A bedroom with a headboard and a big cozy rug underfoot! And a shower with a shower curtain and an actual window treatment instead of a rectangle of cardboard leaning against the sill! WHAT A TIME TO BE ALIVE!

Psst – To read all of the previous beach house posts (this project has been over a year in the making!) here is an archive full of posts & pics for you

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