Monday, 23 November 2009
Saturday, 21 November 2009
A low audio video cabinet as room divider
A neat room divider with loads of storage for media stuff. Double duty furniture from Phil.
"We ripped out all the walls of our living room, dining room and kitchen and then added a new kitchen. We ended up with a living/dining area 33 feet long and almost 19 feet wide. We needed a cabinet to house all the AV system including the front speakers that was not tall so that the space still felt large. So we dug a channel through the concrete floor and installed a tube from the attic to an island cabinet. The tube carries power, rear speaker wires, speaker wires for the library and a component A/V cable to a projector for projection to a 7' wide pull down screen that is recessed in the ceiling above the cabinet.
The cabinet was designed to use Ikea kitchen cabinets. They are actually the same cabinets used in our new kitchen with different hardware. It consists of four 24" sink bases with the sink frame cut off the tops. This brought them down to 24" high. There is one 12" cabinet that was also cut down to 24" high which created space for a center speaker. The layout is two 24" cabinets at each end with the 12" cabinet in the center. Since wiring A/V systems is a hassle, to say the least, we decided to have the back of the cabinet facing the dining area all doors that accessed all the equipment.
Ikea was smart enough to make the shelf support holes in the back of the cabinet the same distance from the outside edge as the front holes so the backs could be eliminated and replaced by doors. However, this created a horizontal stability problem so panels were installed in the middle of right speaker cabinet, the 12" center cabinet. A shorter internal panel was installed in the left speaker cabinet to permit the woofer to pass under it.
Doors for the cabinets that have loudspeakers were purchased from the cheapest line that has framed panels. The inner panel was cut out leaving only a hinged frame over which speaker cloth was stretched. Only one cabinet on the dining room side need speaker cloth to permit maximum sound out put form the woofer whose cabinet has speaker cloth both sides.
The ends and top of the cabinet were constructed from 88" high cabinet end panels. We lucked out as there was shipment damage on quite a few of them and got them from the defective goods section.
The cabinets with doors back and front created a problem in that they are about 25" deep. The tall end panels are 24" and we wanted a little overhang both sides. The system is built with Nexus yellow brown doors. To make an "extension patch" seem like a design element we cut the yellow brown top down the middle and installed a 2 1/2" "stripe/extension using Nexus black-brown which gave us the overhangs on both side we wanted. The top could have been made with one 88" high cabinet end cover panel and one 36" high end cover panel but due to the damaged panels the top had to fabricated in three parts. All joins were made with biscuit joiners. This was my first use of biscuit joiners which are great but I'm yet to master perfect joins."
"We ripped out all the walls of our living room, dining room and kitchen and then added a new kitchen. We ended up with a living/dining area 33 feet long and almost 19 feet wide. We needed a cabinet to house all the AV system including the front speakers that was not tall so that the space still felt large. So we dug a channel through the concrete floor and installed a tube from the attic to an island cabinet. The tube carries power, rear speaker wires, speaker wires for the library and a component A/V cable to a projector for projection to a 7' wide pull down screen that is recessed in the ceiling above the cabinet.
The cabinet was designed to use Ikea kitchen cabinets. They are actually the same cabinets used in our new kitchen with different hardware. It consists of four 24" sink bases with the sink frame cut off the tops. This brought them down to 24" high. There is one 12" cabinet that was also cut down to 24" high which created space for a center speaker. The layout is two 24" cabinets at each end with the 12" cabinet in the center. Since wiring A/V systems is a hassle, to say the least, we decided to have the back of the cabinet facing the dining area all doors that accessed all the equipment.
Ikea was smart enough to make the shelf support holes in the back of the cabinet the same distance from the outside edge as the front holes so the backs could be eliminated and replaced by doors. However, this created a horizontal stability problem so panels were installed in the middle of right speaker cabinet, the 12" center cabinet. A shorter internal panel was installed in the left speaker cabinet to permit the woofer to pass under it.
Doors for the cabinets that have loudspeakers were purchased from the cheapest line that has framed panels. The inner panel was cut out leaving only a hinged frame over which speaker cloth was stretched. Only one cabinet on the dining room side need speaker cloth to permit maximum sound out put form the woofer whose cabinet has speaker cloth both sides.
The ends and top of the cabinet were constructed from 88" high cabinet end panels. We lucked out as there was shipment damage on quite a few of them and got them from the defective goods section.
The cabinets with doors back and front created a problem in that they are about 25" deep. The tall end panels are 24" and we wanted a little overhang both sides. The system is built with Nexus yellow brown doors. To make an "extension patch" seem like a design element we cut the yellow brown top down the middle and installed a 2 1/2" "stripe/extension using Nexus black-brown which gave us the overhangs on both side we wanted. The top could have been made with one 88" high cabinet end cover panel and one 36" high end cover panel but due to the damaged panels the top had to fabricated in three parts. All joins were made with biscuit joiners. This was my first use of biscuit joiners which are great but I'm yet to master perfect joins."
Friday, 20 November 2009
A modular coffee-side table
I like this one from Andrew. It's simple, no doubt but it allows for many uses - working on your laptop at the sofa, eat (though unhealthy) while watching TV. Nice work.
"When I couldn't find any side tables I could hide out of the way by my sofa for use as laptop stands I decided to make them myself using a pair of Ekby Statlig 119x28 shelves. Each table was made from a single shelf by cutting 310mm lengths from each end for the top and bottom, leaving me with a 570mm piece for the back. I fixed it together using threaded rods held in place on the back pieces with epoxy and then nuts to clamp in place the top and bottom.
As a bonus when they're laid down they can also act like a coffee table on their own or could be flipped to support a larger top, glass maybe."
"When I couldn't find any side tables I could hide out of the way by my sofa for use as laptop stands I decided to make them myself using a pair of Ekby Statlig 119x28 shelves. Each table was made from a single shelf by cutting 310mm lengths from each end for the top and bottom, leaving me with a 570mm piece for the back. I fixed it together using threaded rods held in place on the back pieces with epoxy and then nuts to clamp in place the top and bottom.
As a bonus when they're laid down they can also act like a coffee table on their own or could be flipped to support a larger top, glass maybe."
Thursday, 19 November 2009
Save the Rimfrost crystals
Ana salvages the crystals from her Rimfrost lamp and let them breath new life to another.
"I bought this cheeeap old lamp at a second hand shop, as you can see it needed a lot of help to have a new and stylish life but here's where my Rimfrost came to the rescue. I used only part of all the crystals and the rest are ready for another lamp I have in mind (keep tuned). So I gave a couple of coats of primer and a coat of white paint and few strokes of antiquing paint, cause it looked too white. Then I used the crystals and bought some nice shades. I'm so proud of the final look and how easy it has been."
"I bought this cheeeap old lamp at a second hand shop, as you can see it needed a lot of help to have a new and stylish life but here's where my Rimfrost came to the rescue. I used only part of all the crystals and the rest are ready for another lamp I have in mind (keep tuned). So I gave a couple of coats of primer and a coat of white paint and few strokes of antiquing paint, cause it looked too white. Then I used the crystals and bought some nice shades. I'm so proud of the final look and how easy it has been."
Tuesday, 17 November 2009
Philip and Cat's home: An Ikea shoe room and more
The whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts, as we'll see in Phil's series of hacks for his new home with his fianc�e, Cat. Great use of simple Ikea hacks.
1. The Shoe Room
"I thought I might share the shoe room I built for my fianc�e seeing as it drew a lot of interest when I first put photos of it up on Facebook.
We moved to our new house about a year ago and have since been giving it a complete makeover (involving a lot of trips to Ikea and a lot of swedish meatballs in my stomach). A few months after moving in I decided to surprise my girlfriend with a shoe room. I picked up a couple of Billy book shelves with height extensions and a new light (A triple halogen that I can't seem to find online right now) to put into the small walk-in wardrobe room that was next to our bedroom. It was a waste of space before hand, consisting of nothing but two boring hanging rails and a simple hanging light bulb.
While she was over the moon at having a room dedicated to her many shoes and boots, six months or so later and after we got engaged, I decided that she deserved better. So off to Ikea I went again. A few meatballs, a splash of paint and some wiring later and I'd upgraded her shoe room with lots of downlighters (Grundtal spotlights), glass shelves (Billy), a belt rail (I can't find the name) and a bag rail on the back of the door (Grundtal hanger).
2. Bedroom Mirror
"My fianc�e wanted to have a greenish theme to our bedroom and got a bed throw and some cushion covers to start things off. She wanted a big mirror to go over the bed's headboard but wanted it to have a hint of green and didn't really want it looking too modern. The rest of our house is very modern so she wanted something a bit 'older' looking for the bedroom. We got a Hemnes mirror from our favourite meatball suppliers and then modified it a little.
She painted the inner edge with some light green paint and then used some 'antiquing' paint on stuff that makes the paint under it crackle a little to give it the finish she wanted. It was very simple but we think it looks really nice now."
3. Hall Mirror
"For some reason the builders of our house thought the perfect place for a big ugly doorbell and the house's thermostat would be right in the middle of a big long corridor wall. In order to hide it, we bought two Molger mirrors (although we only needed one piece from the second pack). I simply mounted the mirror backwards in the frame and used the base piece from the second pack as a replacement top piece (since Ikea have it designed that you slide the mirror in from the top afterward so for our needs the top lip would have been missing).
I bought some hefty cupboard hinges from a local hardware store and a little metal L-bracket and mounted mounted the mirror to the wall. The hinges are more than strong enough to hold the mirror but I use the L bracket to hook the mirror on when closed so as to make sure that it is level. So now it just looks like a chunky mirror yet we can open it up to change the thermostat when we need to."
4. Under Stairs Storage
"Nothing groundbreaking here but since it involved using a dremel to cut metal it may be 'hackworthy'. Our house has a cupboard under the stairs on the ground floor. It didn't have any shelves in and had no lighting. Basically, it was an utter mess. Ikea didn't have anything that fit our needs. The Broder system was the closest match since it had shelves big enough but even in its shortest form, it was too tall. We bought a couple of shelves, three posts and a height extension rod and I cut the post lengths down to size so that we could fit in one long Broder deep shelf and one short one. I also added some faithful Grundtal spot lights which I wired in to the main lighting for the hallway. The end result is a far better use of space and is much cleaner looking than before."
5. Kitchen Storage
"This was by far the most work of the lot but definitely worth it in my opinion. The space above our fridge freezer had become a rather unsightly dumping ground for random bottles and general stuff. I wanted something far tidier looking and far more practical.
The answer came in the Pax shelf we had left over, lying in the garage left over from and from the many many plain white Billy shelves we've now got after I upgraded the better half's shoe room with glass shelves. After a lot of measuring I worked out that I could fit four Hutten wine racks on one side of the Pax shelf and I could use cut down Billy shelves on the other side to create some shelving. After putting it all together with some metal brackets from a local hardware store, I painted the wine racks, added a Grundtal countertop light (the same as throughout the rest of the kitchen) and bolted it to the walls with three very large heavy duty brackets.
One edge of the Pax shelf had MDF showing as did one of the inner edges of the Billy shelves. I used some white edging strips left over from when we redid the rest of the kitchen to cover these up and they fit perfectly. I'm really happy with the result and love the way the light works through all the different colours of bottles. Our cat, Molly, obviously helped me build the thing. She was obsessed with the sawdust for some bizarre reason.
I hope some of these may be able to inspire others. When you start to think about how you can hack things, walking around Ikea becomes even more fun. You start to see so many more uses for things than originally intended!"
Monday, 16 November 2009
Ikea multi lamp design
I'm loving what Steve and his friend put together using the Not lamp.
"Here's a couple pics of a lamp design I put together with a friend for my art studio� using Ikea lamps and a leg of a shelving unit I had lying around � plus a few various odds and ends. Fun project, hangs in my art studio and works really well."
"Here's a couple pics of a lamp design I put together with a friend for my art studio� using Ikea lamps and a leg of a shelving unit I had lying around � plus a few various odds and ends. Fun project, hangs in my art studio and works really well."
Friday, 13 November 2009
Baby changing table grows into light table.
Boris recycles his daughter's old changing table into a lightbox. Love how it closes in a compact little thing.
"I made the Sniglar baby changing table into a light box. My wife, for a few years now, likes to practice sewing for our daughters. She buy a lot of books containing patterns she has to reproduce on white paper which she then uses to cut the fabric. It's not easy to reproduce those patterns onto the paper.
As our youngest daughter is now two and a half years old, we do not need any more our Sniglar changing table, and I decided to transform it into a light table for my wife. I first thought to keep the table structure as it, but finally, I prefered to use the two level of the table to make one foldable table. I first fixed together the two vat with a long piano hinge. Then I stuck aluminium foil into the vats to reflect the light and I fixed four neon tubes into it. A few meters of cable later, I then closed the vats with two white and opaque plexiglass panels and that's it."
"I made the Sniglar baby changing table into a light box. My wife, for a few years now, likes to practice sewing for our daughters. She buy a lot of books containing patterns she has to reproduce on white paper which she then uses to cut the fabric. It's not easy to reproduce those patterns onto the paper.
As our youngest daughter is now two and a half years old, we do not need any more our Sniglar changing table, and I decided to transform it into a light table for my wife. I first thought to keep the table structure as it, but finally, I prefered to use the two level of the table to make one foldable table. I first fixed together the two vat with a long piano hinge. Then I stuck aluminium foil into the vats to reflect the light and I fixed four neon tubes into it. A few meters of cable later, I then closed the vats with two white and opaque plexiglass panels and that's it."
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