TJUSIG Shoe rack turned small bench

Materials: TJUSIG Shoe rack, some pieces of lath, some oak,

Description: Just wanted to share a small bench I made from a TJUSIG Shoe rack. I realise that IKEA also sell a bench like that (with the same name) but I didn't want it for 2 reasons; it's too big for me and with just a plain board to sit on, it's quite boring.

All I did was to use some sandpaper on some oak-wood, dimensions 60x20mm length 84cm and 2 small pieces of lath, 45x20mm each with a length of 350mm.

First, as I mentioned, I made sure all my wood was the right sizes and smooth enough. I then used white paint for the lath and counter-top oil for the oak.

I turned the shoe rack upside-down so that there would be more height for the shoes, then I drilled a hole in all the legs with the intent to use wooden plugs/dowels.

There is cheap sets of plugs with the correct drill and a few other things, I bought one of those.

Then I drilled responding holes in the two lath pieces so that I would have something to attach the "seat" to.

I also drilled more holes where I planned to use screws from beneath to hold the oak. This is where it is important not to drill too deep, you could use tape on the drill or a drill stop (came with the dowel set).

When all the screws were in I just made sure it all fitted together and then I glued the dowels.

The last thing I did was to add another coat of oil to the oak, just to keep it protected.

I know I'm not that good at explaining this kind of stuff. But I'm happy with the results and a lot of my inspiration (and the idea to hack an IKEA item) came from this site. Thanks, all of you. :)

PS. If you want to know what it would cost to do this.. I don't really know. I just had some wood lying around.. But it won't be that expensive.

~ Erik, Stockholm, Sweden