I recently made myself an Infinity Mirror Coffee Table using an IKEA LACK coffee table. It turned out pretty cool!
I made a video tutorial of how I made it. Take a look.
The post How I transformed an IKEA table into an Infinity Mirror Coffee Table appeared first on IKEA Hackers.
Hanging picture frames on the wall sounds simple. But there are too many ways to attach a frame to a wall.
RIBBA frames are great! We have several in different sizes for a consistent gallery look. But sometimes the mounting hardware makes accurate placement a challenge.
RIBBA photo frames | IKEA.com
The picture below shows the back of a RIBBA 20x25cm frame. Notice the supplied sawtooth hanger. With the back panel up against the artwork, it is so far away from the wall behind it.
Unless you are using a VERY long screw or nail to hang this on, it will be a challenge attaching the hanger to the wall exactly where you’d like it.
These are the few items you’ll need for this hack:
Notice how the wooden dowel fits nicely in the gap between the two “heads” of the Screw Hooks. This is the key to this hack.
Step #1: Cut the dowel to fit between the two sides of the frame. Glue the dowel under the top of the frame. Keep the dowel flush with the frame back.
Step #2: Screw the Screw Hooks into the drywall. Keeping them level is important. Their side-to-side placement is less critical since the dowel can slide on the Screw Hooks.
Step #3: Hang the frame with the dowel resting on both Screw Hooks.
The picture above shows how the parts fit together. Note that the dowel does not actually support the weight of the frame, it merely keeps it snugly against the wall.
~ by IllinoisOwl
Don’t throw the RIBBA backing paper away just yet. It is really useful in marking the photo gallery layout on the wall. Once you’re happy with the shape and mix of frames, you can start hammering or drilling the walls. Get the full photo gallery tutorial from IKEA.
Photo: IKEA.com
The post Hanging picture frames accurately on the wall: A RIBBA how-to appeared first on IKEA Hackers.
I get this very often in my submissions inbox – requests for help to identify and name IKEA pieces. I would like to help but it’s hard to know (and remember) every name on IKEA’s ever expanding catalog. Hundreds and thousands of products have gone through its stores over the years. But all our heads together is better than mine alone, with its very limited RAM. And this could be fun — kinda like an IKEA name game. With no prizes, except the self-satisfaction of knowing you can ace those Swedish names. Let’s do this!
#1 Mel’s mystery bed
Are you able to identify the name of this bed frame? Mel searched and can’t find it online and need the name to find assembly instructions. Any info you could provide would be greatly appreciated!
I think this is a DALSELV bed. 
Yes, I’m positive it’s a DALSELV. Assembly instructions here.
#2 Elise’s pre-PAX wardrobe
Elise bought a condo in Washington, DC that has what looks like a predecessor to the PAX system. The hinged doors are 23.5″ wide and 76.5″ tall.
Thank you for any thoughts you have!
No idea about this one. Anyone else?
#3 Rachel’s mystery cabinets
She has a hacking plan but need to find out what the existing IKEA units are called…. Please help. It’s driving her nuts!!
At first, I thought it was a ROBIN, with similar white and birch frame. But on further inspection, this is likely a MAGIKER. Found a similar cabinet with glass doors here.
#4 Maria’s green sofa
Maria would love to buy a new slipcover for her sofa but can’t find this model in IKEA.
Anyone knows its name?
Quite close to an EKTORP but it isn’t. Stumped on this one.
#5 Kati’s black and white wardrobe
Kati is trying to get a replacement door for this wardrobe. But she don’t hold out much hope as it was discontinued a couple of years ago. Without the wardrobe name, she can’t even start to search for it. Can anyone help with the name of it please?
No idea about this wardrobe either.
#6 Tilo’s cabinet ID crisis
He found these at his new place but no idea what they are called. He tried eBay, Google (including picture search) but turned up zero. Can anyone please help him identify them?
My guess is the discontinued range of IKEA office furniture, EFFEKTIV. Link to EFFEKTIV buying guide.
What about you?
#1 Mel’s mystery bed: ________________________
#2 Elise’s pre-PAX wardrobe: ________________________
#3 Rachel’s mystery cabinets: ________________________
#4 Maria’s green sofa: ________________________
#5 Kati’s black and white wardrobe: ________________________
#6 Tilo’s cabinet ID crisis: ________________________
Thanks for playing the IKEA name game, folks!
The post Hackers Help: Identity problems aka IKEA name game appeared first on IKEA Hackers.
Some say gallery walls are trending out in favor of larger scale art. Maybe. It makes sense that gallery walls on every wall (especially the ones with a ton of tiny frames) might feel a little less “new and fresh” these days. But I’d argue that a collection of frames hung together on the wall feels pretty classic if you stop and think about it. Watch Home Alone. They totally have a gallery wall going up their formal staircase in the foyer where Kevin sleds and hurls paint cans. But one spot I love for a gallery wall these days is actually around a TV. Why? Well, that big black box isn’t exactly gorgeous.
It’s often this hulking dark thing on an otherwise bare wall, so why not break things up and add a few other rectangular things to deemphasize it. It’s not like the TV disappears when you add a gallery – but at least you have a few other (prettier) spots to rest your eyes. And you can always turn on Planet Earth, since that makes any TV look like art in a nanosecond.
We first blogged about adding a frame gallery around our living room television, oh, FOUR AND A HALF YEARS AGO (evidence: here – also how funny is the “What Does the Fox Say?” reference – ah, 2013). Things have evolved A LOT in that room since then (hello paint!) and the gallery got a few tweaks (some new art there, some frame switches there) but it has pretty much stood the test of time. And since I get a bunch of questions every time we show a smidge of it on social media, this post is for everyone asking about framing arrangements, what to frame, how to hang them, and where we get our art. So let’s dive in, Planet Earth Style. I’ll be the whale if you’re that big school of tiny reflective fish.
First, if you listened to last week’s podcast you heard that we got a new TV (the old and very faithful one now lives at the beach house, reunited with our old couch and it feels so good). We also decided to mount our new TV on the wall and used one of those in-wall power cord systems to hide the wire. That whole process only takes an hour or so and is SO WORTH IT. We’ve got an entire post dedicated to creating a cord-free TV wall if you’re interested in a step-by-step tutorial on that. That post also shows you how to hide a cable box if you have one. And if you’re looking to cut the cord, here’s how we did that.
But it’s not absolutely necessary to mount your TV to create a good-looking frame gallery around it. As you can see in the old photo below, we had ours resting on the media cabinet for years. But mounting it has definitely made the room feel more spacious and less cluttered. Also, we are BIG FANS of secondhand dressers as TV cabinets – this one is from a thrift store and we have a similar one in our bonus room from Craigslist.
Ok, now onto actually hanging your frames around the TV. There are a few methods you can use…
Grab whatever frames you have on hand and want to use (or pick up new ones that you love) and lay them out on the floor, with a gap on the floor in the shape of your TV (measure it to get the correct amount of space). Then just move them around on the floor to see what layout you like. That’s how we created this very frame wall in our original post… back when our living room was overwhelmingly, mind-numbingly brown.
This one is really easy too, and if you are worried you won’t like things once they’re up on the wall, it’s the one to try. Because it helps you visualize things right on the wall before you actually hang the frames. How? Use newspaper, brown paper bags, or even printer paper (taped together if you need to make a larger piece of paper) and cut them to the size of each frame you want to hang. Then you just tape them up on the wall using masking or painter’s tape, and move them around until you like the arrangement and are ready to put the actual frames up in place of the paper templates. You can see that method in use here in our last house where we created a frame gallery in the hallway. Less busy paper would be easier on the ol’ eyeballs, but you get the idea.
This is kind of a combo move of the two above. SHAROOOKEN! You arrange your frames on the floor, but on top of a large sheet of paper (like brown craft paper, red rosin paper, or even wrapping paper if that’s all you have). Once you reach the arrangement you like, trace each frame onto the paper – even marking the spot where each one hangs on the back – creating an oversized template that you can transfer right onto your wall. It’s best on small to medium sized frame groupings (like this one we hung in our last house) because you’re somewhat limited by the size of your paper roll, but this would totally work on either side of the TV (you’d make two in that case).
You also can be a rebel and JUST HANG STUFF ON THE WALLS! I wouldn’t recommend going totally rogue and just making holes willy-nilly (although I’ve done that and spackling takes like three minutes so it’s not the biggest deal if you end up there). But if you break things down into sections it’ll help you stay on track. For example: start by getting the centering and spacing of the frames above your TV to your liking first. Then that’ll help guide the height and spacing of the frames to the left of the TV. Once those are set, you can match them on the right side.
“Should I use all the same frames?” “Is there’s some sort of formula for mixing them?” “Should all of the art be black & white or all the same type of thing (all sketches, all photos, all paintings?)” Questions like this abound. So I’ll try to explain what works for us and why we typically end up there – although this is definitely one of those “we’ve seen it done so many different ways, there are probably a million ways to skin this cat” kind of things. Personally, we started with all white frames in here, and I slowly found myself craving a little more variety, so over time if I found nice light wood frames (like the two over the TV) or some pretty thin gold ones (like the five of those you see below) I slowly brought those in to mix things up.
But despite having different frames up there, these are three factors that help tie the arrangement together:
Since our arrangement is a mix of frame types and sizes, we wanted the items that we framed to be a bit of a mix as well. Had this been a more gridded frame gallery using identical frames – like this one we did above the couch in our last house or down our old hallway – we probably would’ve kept the art more consistent too. But to give you a sense of the random mix we’ve hung here, I added some numbers to the next two photos so you can see we have up there, where we got things, and why we love ’em.
I talked more about my process for finding frameable “art” recently on Instagram too (on one of our trips to the beach house) so check out the video below for more examples of how we fill our frames without breaking the bank:
Also! Frame PSA! The gold frames you saw in that video are my very favorite, and they don’t hail from a fancy and expensive frame store – they’re from Target! They come with the mats, are extremely pretty, and come in a bunch of sizes (I have all three of these sizes all over our house and the beach house). And the artist from Etsy that I shouted out in that last video is Emily Jeffords, who recently got picked up by Minted! Love her stuff so much.
As for how we hang them, here’s a quick video that I made for InstaStories a little while ago (sometimes videos help more than a static pic):
So there it is, a full succulent-riddled detail-riddled rundown of our TV frame wall. If you’re still feeling like you don’t know where to start or how to approach this, my loving encouragement would be: JUST START! You can see from the video above that holes in the walls behind frames don’t even get seen! So if you hang something too low and have to move it up, it IS NO BIG DEAL. Even if you have to spackle a few holes, that is as easy as spreading butter on bread, and you know you can do that. I believe in you. May your walls be happy and your holes be hidden behind frames like mine, ha!
Oh and if you have a lower TV/media cabinet situation and are left with a big bare spot on the wall above it all, here’s what we did to fill that space in our last house. So easy and so cheap! And for more framing/art ideas, we have a whole archive full of ’em, so have at it!
*This post contains affiliate links*
The post How To Create A TV Gallery Wall appeared first on Young House Love.
With this hack, you’ll have a very unique bicycle rack that not only works but looks good too. It costs not even €20 and takes only 20 minutes to make one set.
These are the materials and IKEA items you’ll need:
EKBY BJÄRNUM | IKEA.com
Tools:
Using your circular saw, cut a 20 x 27cm board out of the wooden countertop.
Then attach a hole saw to your drill and make a hole with a diameter of 5cm. This hole should be placed at the middle of kitchen plate, closer to the short end of the board (see the drawing below).
Then saw the board through the middle with a circular saw.
Sand to smoothen the cut edges.
Taking one half of the board, try to insert the long side into the EKBY BJÄRNUM bracket. If the board is too thick for the bracket, get a grinder and make the plate a bit thinner at the end, so that it fits the bracket snugly.
Lastly, attach the EKBY BJÄRNUM brackets to the wall using appropriate wall fixings. Use a level to get the brackets on straight.
Lift your bikes into position and there you have it! A gorgeous wood and steel bicycle rack.
~ by Jens
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Which kid doesn’t love a good swing? Here’s how Tom Builder hacked the ANTILOP high chair into a toddler swing. The best thing is, the ropes can be wound up behind it and the chair returned to its primary function as a high chair. Is that cool or what?
Take a look at this video:
The post Make a toddler swing from a high chair. A reversible hack. appeared first on IKEA Hackers.
