Showing posts with label IKEA hack. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IKEA hack. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

The Bumpy Road in Renovations

Remember the deal on a vanity that I mentioned a while back?

I scored a vanity from IKEA at an unbelievable price. Well, turns out that deals are not always what they seem, and I have learned another renovation tip: talk to your contractor or handyman in detail before making purchases. Turns out all sorts of complications come with floating vanities in old houses: moving plumbing, creating access panels, tearing out walls...all of a sudden the deal of a century does not become so deal-like. So back to the drawing board. 
Turns out vanities are expensive. And I hate most of the ones you can buy out there. This is where I turn to the internet to help me find an alternative, to see if something can be done to magically make the vanity of my dreams:
I think most of us have seen this piece of kitchen furniture at IKEA some time or another. Other than the open shelving (I don't want to see the pipes), I think it is a little piece of genius. 
Same idea with IKEA effectiv office furniture.

These people used one of the bathroom cabinets from Ikea that I do not like, Lillangen (I thought it looked kind of cheap at the store). I really like it here though, the customized fronts and handles make it look less Ikea-like.
Another person who customizes furniture to use as bathroom cabinets is Sarah Richardson. Here are a few of her gorgeous transformations:

This cabinet was from pier 1!

This is not a cabinet, but a was originally a rusted out iron table she transformed.
Another beautiful transformation, she lucked out by finding a sideboard with a marble top for $350...I wonder if I could be so lucky.....
There is also the option of making one or getting one custom made, which sounds expensive too. You also have to somehow protect the top surface of the furniture which could pose a challenge and add to expense. Does anyone have any other ideas to share? Have you re-purposed any furniture for a kitchen or bath?

Monday, May 9, 2011

IKEA hack: create a built in look for your fridge using IKEA cabinetry.


 As you may know already, we used IKEA for our kitchen. Our fridge was not continuous with the cabinetry but we wanted that "built in" look. We were ready to use the $150 panel you can pick up from IKEA, but it seemed like we could save more money; as well the panel had a cheap shiny look to it I was not wild about. So we went with our good ol' friend plywood instead! After affixing the cabinets to the wall using the track system, and cutting a piece of plywood the depth of the fridge, we attached it "good side" out to the cabinetry. We were then left with this:
We then used extra trim panels from IKEA to fill in the space between the cabinets and the fridge, and some quarter-round to finish off the edge of the plywood. I knew I wanted to incorporate a chalkboard somewhere in the kitchen, and this seemed like the perfect spot! I wanted it to look "finished", so my husband picked up some trim to frame it in:
A few coats of CC-40 by Benjamin Moore and some chalkboard paint and it looks like the fridge was meant for that spot! (a quick tip; CC-40 is almost an exact match to IKEA cabinetry! We even saved more money by using a 7.99 tester quart from Sherwin-Williams that we colour matched)