Creating a versatile bookcase suitable for any room.

Now before you read any further I best let you know I ain't any experienced carpenter who can make fancy furniture (tho wish I could), I am just someone who ain't afraid to try my hands at anything DIY to make my home a better place. But if you have read my IKEA hack blogs, you probably know this already. ;-)

I had posted a few pics on my bookcase online with The BookCase Project with some positive responses & a lot of questions about it, especially the photos of the hall bookcase which will be shown later in the blog. But I'll start at the beginning as to how it all started.

Now I love my books but also love DVDs & both need somewhere to store them, I aint one for eBooks or streaming movies. I so prefer owning them physically & that means I need to find ways to utilise the limited space in my flat. But I found conventional melamine bookcases limited in utilising space & often waste the space needed & fall apart all too soon.

So I decided it was time to build my own, use planks of wood cut to length & screwed together. Nothing fancy or complex, just screws holding it all together as nothing heavy to go in each shelf but goes from floor to ceiling with as many shelves as possible & that's what I did for my first one.

And it worked well, so well I did some more for the bedroom & use some dead space behind the door.

And was going to add more but I then moved to a smaller flat with lower ceiling heights & new storage problems I had to overcome. This meant a complete rethink on how I was going to do the shelving & where. The answer was to utilise the wide space of the hall in the flat & fill one side of the hall with bookcases, problem was it was L shaped so the bookcases I had had to be reconfigured for a lower height & fit around a corner. So out came the designer in me & did some drawings...

So over a period of time I slowly built it like I had before in sections starting with the ones I already had whilst decorating whole of the flat too.

And needed to get flooring redone before the shelving was completed which involved in sealing the concrete & laying laminate flooring.

 

And slowly over months it came together...

You can see it slowly taking shape as was the rest of the flat...

Then it was time to paint it all. That was fun in a small flat...

 

 

It was slow to do but this is the final result that looked fantastic with the rest of the hall...

So now they have been completed, I was pleased with how they went & these are the photos I posted to The Bookcase Project with some amazing feedback for such a simple design. Like I said, just some planks screwed together. lol

Well the following year I had moved again which now posed a new challenge to show how versatile the wooden shelving is. I had a whole wall in the livingroom to use.

So I started again in re-configuring & adapting the existing shelving to go along the wall.

Not much else has been done to it as yet, I do have plans but I have been busy doing the rest of the livingroom 1st that needed more done & the shelving doing well as it is atm tho filled up fast & looking to do some more shelving in another room...

 

And others have been impressed in my shelving & I have helped build them some too, this one was a fun one to do as it was a Zig Zag design to fit in a very small box room for a young teenager.

A simple design made from planks, but so versatile in how to use them. :)

IKEA Hack #1 Slim BESTA Entertainment Unit, remodelled 2015 (updated February 2017)

Note: Updates to the blog are at the bottom if you like to get up to date if you have read the original blog already.

So in 2011 I had built this entertainment system which I had submitted this on a site http://www.ikeahackers.net among other ones but only this one was published in December 2011. So I posted it on Blogger in 2012, since then I have moved & got new equipment.

This is the original blog reposted with the remodelling to follow at the end in which I have started in 2014 for a new flat & new equipment. So if you have read it before & don't want a refresher on previous blog then please scroll down...

Materials

BESTA, INREDA Pull-out frame, INREDA Shelf insert, SNUDDA, Hole borer drill bit

Description

Main objective was to minimise space of all my entertainment equipment. In previous flat I had metal brackets with cut to size shelves to hold all equipment above TV which worked well on the solid wall.But in new smaller flat, its hollow plasterboard walls & doubtful it could hold all the equipment, so had to be free-standing & I decided to use a Besta Wood effect tall unit. 

I measures the levels where the shelves were to go to give breathing room to equipment, done w/o TV at 1st as was planning more units to hang on wall over TV. I then measure evenly the holes to drill out & big enough to feed a plug through. Then it was a case of fitting the equipment in & wire it all up & put in its place. 

Few months later I found out this wood effect style had been discontinued & couldn't get any more Besta's to match, I decided to put TV inside the unit on a pull out drawer & have it swivel so I can watch TV from the PC desk. I used a plank of wood to sit TV on, the bearing mechanism of a SNUDDA lazy susan to swivel the TV. All bolted/screwed onto the INREDA Shelf insert sitting in the INREDA Pull-out frame. 

The remaining space is for boxes of knick-knacks using PAPPIS cardboard boxes, which 2 fits lovely on each shelf & I was able to fit 4 with room for power supply at the bottom for all the equipment. 

Tho it took a few months to get all of it together, it actually was 2 days work & look great next to the other Besta I was able to get & use as a display cabinet. Next stage is to back light the units & then it will all be finished.

2015

As I have now moved, the layout of the livingroom is very different & the Besta Unit now sits in the corner, TV has also been replaced as previous one died. So I got a bigger Widescreen TV unit & this meant it couldn't fit it inside the unit. So I went back to Ikea & found a matching new design Besta Cabinet Door & reconfigured the whole unit.

Most of the equipment is still above the TV, only the Game consoles aren't as they don't need line of sight for the remote controllers & thus have been moved & sit behind the cupboard door. Also I used the extra space for document storage too thus free up space on other Besta shelves.

You can see I drilled holes in the cupboard door big enough to fit leads through to TV & big enough for scart leads to fit through, then fixed the cables to the door & unit so not to get snagged when opening & closing the cabinet door..

The space below has now been turned into cabinet space & eventually I will light up the shelving system & cabinet with LED lighting. Also there's room for any future equipment now that I have moved them around to house the game consoles behind the cupboard doors.

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With its new position & layout, it sits nicely in the new flat & continues with my original idea that has evolved as circumstances changes & no doubt will for many years to come. I'll update as & when this happens..


Update 20th June 2016

As the room evolves when decorating, so does the layout.

And thus so does the design of the BESTA Entertainment Unit, with new tech coming onto the market for watching media I have had to find new ways to incorporate it into the unit & be available to access directly or by remote.

Most what is in the cabinet part is the same, just had a lil move around to get more room to let the devices breathe. What I have added is the Chromecast & Amazon Fire Stick, as they both work on out of sight remote control it was easier to attach them to the cabinet door & have the Chromecast, Fire Stick & PS3 connecting to the HDMI connection of the TV by an auto select HDMI switchover box so whatever I turn on it switches to it & I can then enjoy using it.

All of these are stuck to the cabinet door with Commando Velcro tabs for easy removal if I need to move them, all tidy & hidden when cabinet door is closed. That's about it for now...


Update 20th February 2017

As January sales kicked in & Christmas money burning a hole in my pocket, I bought myself a Soundbar speaker to improve the sound coming from the TV as well as finally fixing the surround sound system cooling fan thus giving me a choice in sound quality. It did mean I had to re-organise the shelving to fit the speakers in place & to feed the extra cables.

Still looks good & tidy & the setup is still versatile as ever.

IKEA Hack #4 MALM Chest of drawers

This is my 4th IKEA hack which is a very simple one to do with a bit of time & patience.

First of all, this wasn't for me. This was done for my partner who needed her Chest of Drawers adapted for easier use.

My partner has to sets of MALN drawers that are very good & sturdy but also the drawers are heavy to open due to this. The design is a handleless design & the finger access at the top makes it difficult to open. So after a few discussions on how to put handles on that are low profile & big enough, she decided that the KANSLI chrome-plated 38cm Handles were the best choice.

Now due to the drawers fronts being thicker in material than standard Kitchen cabinet doors which these handles are for, the supplied bolts weren't long enough at 20mm & had to be replaced with 25mm of the same diameter.

Next was to mask up the drawers, the reason for this was so that I could mark up where the holes will be with a soft grade pencil & not mark the Beech veneer which comes in handy when mistakes are made in measuring (yes I do make mistakes) but are corrected when double checking them.

Tape also works at keeping the hole tidy when I drill, not that you see the holes when handles are in place. Holes are drilled on 1 drawer to start with & the handle was fitted to be sure it all fits ok (& pray it is as it can't be undone), which it was as I had checked all measurements more than once. After that drawer was done & was ok, I carried on to the next & the next etc, until all were finished.

And I must say they look better with the handles & a good choice made by my beloved.

IKEA Hack #3 RAST Shelves

This is my 3rd  IKEA hack which is a very simple one to do.

Due to fitting new flooring, I couldn't have the existing RAST drawers beside the bed due to the quadrant trim over the laminate flooring. So had to find an alternative solution.

Flooring laid w/o trimming & drawers fit, but only just.

So I went for RAST shelves as they fit nicely beside the bed.

But I found them too low for the bed. Was just a nightmare to reach down for my cuppa, bedtime reading, etc.

So I decided like my BERTBY hack I would hang them on the wall with FAKTUM Brackets.

 

But the bottom shelf was too high for the plugs & didn't look right with legs hanging like they are, so decided to lower the bottom shelf to mirror the top shelf.

I started by putting the leg planks together & rotate one round so holes of this leg plank are opposite to the other leg plank, then used a drill to carefully drill through the holes into the other plank to make a set of matching holes.

This did mean I had extra holes not required now & didn't want them visible, so I carefully filled & sanded them flush to the wood.

Next was to drill a larger hole on 1 side of each set of shelves to feed wiring from plugs for lamps, chargers, etc then painted all the wood to cover my filling & protect the wood.

Once paint had dried, it was a case of building the 2 set of shelves & hang them to the wall on either side of the bed.

As you can see by next pic, the wiring feeds through & lamp switches are stuck in place with those no-damage adhesive pads.

I was very pleased with the results & feel the shelves really go with the decor & make the room look bigger because you can see the floor..