Kitchen island from bookcase and table top

Jen puts Gorilla Glue to good use in this hack. That is, sticking the table top to the bookcase to create a kitchen island.

She says, "I really wanted a kitchen island, but wasn't willing to shell out the cash for it... so, i hacked one together out of Ikea parts!

It's an Expedit bookcase and a Vika Amon tabletop. Gorilla Glue together, keeping one side flush and the other side hang over, and voila! A kitchen island.

And funny enough, the Franklin folding chair fits perfectly with this hack."

Tired of your bare walls? Then you gotta check this out.

Aaah ... I love a hack that gets everyone in the family moving. Pinot, Dita and their two girls had a weekend of fun creating this wall art.

Pinot writes, "We decided to decorate the wall of our new apartement with a wall painting (mural). We choose mix media, poster paints and Ikea fabrics."

What they did brilliantly was cut and paste Ikea fabric and then outlined them with poster paints. It's not tough to do. The results are delightful and is a great way to brighten up a wall.

See more of Pinot and Dita's fabric wall art. Don't miss the video too.

Floating billies

I love this one. The Billy bookcases take on a new lightness when hung on the wall. Also, furniture off the floor is the way to go for me. Makes cleaning so much easier, eh.

Karine Schenkeveld and Erik Roscam Abbing from Rotterdam, The Netherlands turns a $59.99 bookcase into a fancy designer object. They tell me, "All we did was cut off the bottom part of the vertical elements underneath the bottom shelf, mount nine steel L brackets per bookcase to the wall (three per fixed Billy shelf) and mount the Billies on to them.

Pretty simple, but everyone thinks we had them handmade for us. Some people are worried that they'll come off the wall. But come on, there are 18 (!) 8cm (approx 3") screws per bookcase, and the load is almost completely vertical: no problem."

Decoupaged wardrobe

Plain jane wardrobes are aplenty at Ikea. But that's nothing a little paint and decoupage can't fix. Here's a sweet one from Brett, an upgrade of the Stranda.

She first painted the frame with two coats of high gloss paint over primer and then decoupaged wrapping paper on the door panels. The final touch were door pulls from Anthropologie.

Click for more instructions on Brett's decoupaged wardrobe. 

Henriksdal gets a dye job

Tina adds a splash of colour to her Henriksdal barstools simply by dyeing the cover.

Tina says, "After experiencing several months of long, black cat hairs and wine spots on our white Henriksdal barstool seat covers, I decided to dye them.

Being a fabric artist and frequent dyer, I was already familiar with a low-water immersion dyeing technique from Ellen Anne Eddy.

I prepared several colors of Procion MX dyes, in an analogous color range (yellows to greens to blues to plums and purples), dabbed them on with a makeup applicator sponge, then set the four covers to cure in four quart-sized baggies. After scouring them (hot, extended machine washing with dye-fixing detergent), I was happy to see that they survived without shrinking or falling apart.

The new covers not only coordinate better with our wonderful bright green dining chairs, but add a nice, much-needed splash of color to our all-white kitchen and ties it better to the adjacent outdoor garden patio."

This salad bowl sounds good

Salad bowls are not only good for tossing greens, they make good spherical speakers too. Here's a pair from Robert that are getting the kudos.

He says, "I wanted to make a pair of speaker enclosures and bought a pair of Ikea Blanda Matt Bowls, glued them together then mounted the speaker driver in them."

Click to view details of the salad bowl speakers.

Related hacks:
- Give yoruself sexy speaker legs
- Dudero lamp as speaker stand
- Lee's Ikea basement studio hacks

Bare bones computer case

Davide R uses the kitchen tray Variera (can't find the link on Ikea's website) as a bare bones computer case. Does it work? Doesn't it get all dusty? It looks cool though in a Transformers kind of way.