ikeahack

My Gardepyssel (a never ending story)

Prologue

I have been working on this project for quite some time now and still it’s not finished. I am aware of that this kind of project will need a lot of time and work along the way, it might not ever be finished!

This is something truly epic, slightly IKEA-hacked, incredibly useful and barely fitting in to my studio apartment (which is a project itself).
I have created (modified) my own crafting closet!
It’s not the first one to ever see the light of day but it is mine and I badly need it.

When my dear scrapopedia moved in with her amazing boyfriend she got some dedicated space for her crafting, we refer to it as “skrubben”. It’s not huge, it’s not in the same league as the crazy ladies on youtube, but it is awesome. If you’ve ever seen this commercial you’ll be able to figure out the scene that took place as we were introduced to “skrubben”.

Chapter 1, the abandoned closet

One of my brother’s girlfriend had this new, huge closet left in her old apartment which she didn’t know what to do with. I got it for a bag of cinnamon rolls and some cupcakes (still not delivered yet), apparently this was what my brother wanted for the closet, she said “nothing” when I asked. She’s so sweet and kind! As a bonus I gave them a large jar of homemade plum marmalade and there might be more surprises to come! We will see.

Chapter 2, the final mount down

First off, both my brothers helped out to mount down the closet, carry it to the car and drive it to my mothers house.

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Chapter 3, the rise of the closet

After a few weeks I decided that I was able to create some space for it in my apartment so my very kind mother and brother came here to deliver it and my mother also helped with reassembling it.
It had to shelves and a drawer when I got it, here’s what it looked like after I started to put my stuff inside

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Chapter 4, some closet love – at least I tried

I went to IKEA with Jennie and Malin on a Saturday (we also went to Panduro and the best sushi place we know of: Svenska sushiköket, LOVE their bento and yakiniku!)
Anyway, I got me some more shelves, lamps, rails and baskets and most likely much more (I actually went to IKEA again the weekend after with  my mother to buy stuff I forgot or didn’t find).

Lamps installed, didn’t work out exactly as I intended.. Doors can’t be closed this way.. sigh!

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Chapter 5, oh the time we spend together

After my second visit to IKEA the closet is starting to look quite decent.  I attached the rails, hung up the baskets and created a temporary solution for my washi tape. I plan to redo this solution more proper later on, but it works for now!

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Chapter 6, now we’re talking

I was looking for shelves that weren’t full size deep and IKEA has a “thinner” closet with shelves. Since the holes in the shelves didn’t fit the pre-drilled holes in the closet, I borrowed a drill and a drilling machine from my dad and solved the problem on my own. I’m such a handywoman!
Now my lamps have a proper place in the closet and I can close the doors! I also get really good light in there and the lamps are somewhat adjustable. Just perfect! And all my stuff is easier to access!

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Epilogue

When this is finished, or at least somewhat finished, I will show you everything in detail, probably in one of those “this is my craft room”-videos.

Left to do for now:

  • A shelf I can pull out and work on
  • Organize stuff for easy access and within reach while crafting. Try to figure out what to put close to the working area. Just use the space and try to figure out what I need where basically
  • Adjust the doors and mount handles
  • Find a solution for the power cable inside the closet
  • Put in and organize the left over stuff in my old craft cupboard

To be continued…

Another IKEA hack, Tolsby

Unfortunately I didn’t come up with this one myself, I got inspired by this post on IKEAhackers and I just had to make myself a few for all my earrings. Before the hack was born I used one of those paper stands for mail and such, similar to IKEA’s DOKUMENT webbed surface. Perfect for earrings with hooks!

I got bored and thought this would look nicer, unfortunately I had no cross-stitch canvas at home, just some tulle and thicker paper. Since the tulle is quite soft and weak it wouldn’t stand in the picture frame with any heavier earrings on so I created some sort of frame with my thick paper. I had to use both double-sided tape and super glue to make sure it would hold up. I even put a few staples around the edges, I don’t trust glue that much ;)

As you can see, my earrings are quite heavy and the tulle does hang down a tiny bit on the left image.

  

After putting my earrings up I thought I needed something for my pin earrings so I took some of my favorite paper (both are from DCWV’s collection Black Currant) and punched small holes to stick the earrings into and close on the back side.

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If I ever get bored of the paper in the frames its so easy to replace. I’m sure it works with paper for the hook earrings as well.. maybe one day ;)
It does bother me a bit that the pattern is very bold, it does look quite messy but I just love the purple one, it looks great with the white frame too!

EGON

EGON is a fusion of GRUNDTAL and STAVE. It’s perfect for small apartments and compact living.

I live in a 30 square meter apartment with large windows, many doors and little free wall space due to fantastic planning. And like any girl, I’d love a huge full-size mirror. The only problem is that I don’t have the required wall space available.
When I broke my KRABB mirror (while sleeping) I made my way to IKEA and purchased STAVE without thinking twice. Thrilled over my new mirror I went home and realized that it would be impossible to put it anywhere on the wall except behind a door, which would work perfectly fine except for the fact that I need the space for my purses and shoes.

I asked my dad if it’s possible to hang 10 kg on a door without breaking it, and if he thought we could figure something out for my door. Since I have to use every space possible I already have a bunch of GRUNDTAL hanging around over my doors and my dad took one home for examination.

After removing the protective rubberplasticthingy on the back side he found out that the hooks were drilled and pressed into holes in the main part of GRUNDTAL and it was really easy to remove them!

My dad likes to weld things (unless it’s rust on a car) and had some screws and washers lying around just waiting to be used. So we decided to give it a try and I got to learn how to weld!

After a few hours of preparations and welding (yaay) we got a pretty decent result. A GRUNDTAL with two screws sticking out just enough to fit the holds on the mirror.

I also taped some protective plastic on the backside to avoid marking the door.

Since STAVE should be able to hang both horizontally and vertically we didn’t think it would be an issue to hang it vertically on the door by moving the holds to the shorter sides of the frame. We were wrong. After only one or two days the frame started to break apart. I moved it to the floor before it actually broke.
The frame around the mirror piece is not strong enough to hold the entire weight of the mirror, that’s why the holds were mounted along the longer sides (should have figured that one out).

We went to Bauhaus and purchased an L-shaped aluminium frame, cut it off for perfect fit and drilled holes to fit the ones in the wooden frame.

We put some more hot melt on the backside of the mirror to make it stronger and more stable.

We glued the aluminium and wooden frame together using contact cement (just to make sure it would be strong).

Luckily the original screws were long enough to reach through the aluminium frame too (we did put some glue in the holes as well) and we were able to mount GRUNDTAL safe and strong to the slightly improved STAVE frame.

And voilà! EGON was (re)born!

To avoid the mirror bumping into the door I put some double sided tape (used for scrapbooking, the thicker type) on the bottom part of the frame and to keep the door handle from damaging the mirror I used FIXA.


I still keep an eye out for EGON to make sure it will hold. It’s been a few weeks now and it looks good. In case we need to enhance it later on I think the plan is to add some metal parts in the corners to even out the weight to the longer sides too. If that won’t hold I’ll replace the frame with real oak pieces instead.

The hack cost me less than 700 SEK (about $95 or €75).
STAVE: 549 SEK
GRUNDTAL: 45 SEK
Aluminium frame: 70 SEK
Since the screws, washers, tape, glue and protective plastic were something we had lying around I don’t know the prices, but I doubt it will add up to more than a total of 700 SEK (unless you have to buy glue and tape etc).

Happy hacking!