More Ikea tricks

Graduated. With honors.

High fives... fist pumps... dancing... etc. 

I am scared/happy/relieved/excited.

 

Went to Ikea to have a looksie at some desks/table options for project girl den.

Walked by this guy and stopped in my tracks

Vittsjo shelving unit. Good lines, good size, and good price ($90). I really want to get one (or two) of these and give it a gold makeover. Spray paint? Gold leaf?

Right?

Or the skinnier version for $50.

and I scored some large scale zebra print fabric. Thinking of reupholstering a Louis XVI style armchair in it. For project girl den. But it'll be my first try at reupholstering so my hopes are not too high.

In my dreams it appears as this:

But in reality I'll probably end up slaughtering the fabric, the chair, and a hand.

We'll see.

Pillow talk

I've wanted a giant spooky portrait for as long as I can remember.

and by that I mean for 3-4 years now. But still. 

All have been ugly or dumb but mostly just too pricey.

Then the other day I stumbled upon this in a nearby thrift store

My boyfriend loves him, I love him, win win.

It was only 30 bucks which is a stupid annoying price for the thrift store I found it in but overall it was an AWESOME price. It is also a great size ... don't let the photo fool you. It's 3x2 which I know isn't that big but for my teeny tiny bedroom it is BIG. 

So I made up a wee mood board. A few of them.

Right now we have a boring ikea malm bed which works just fine so instead of replacing it I am going to hack it. A hybrid of this and this. I am totally up for the DIY challenge. Upholstered in linen.

Those aren't our current sconces, but really similar. 

The walls will be painted glossy black-ish.

Ikea RAST nightstand hack. (Currently don't have nightstands. You're right, we are animals)

 

 Sassy red velvet lumbar pillows.

I love this combination because it's fancy and gender neutral. Not that I give a hoot if my boyfriend thinks our room is too girly... but sometimes I try to be fair. But now that I keep looking at this one it feels too masculine. but not enough to bother me.

I feel like Bates would approve

And since my bedroom is approximately the size of a can of tuna, I'm going to add fun with pillows. 

and I am one of those weirdos that makes the bed in the morning so no fear of it ever looking not perfect

Carrying on...

 

Isn't that polka dot pillow ever so sweet? I love all of this.

 This one here is for the "pillows are dumb, show me the orange campaign nightstands" people.

We've lived in this house for nearly 2 years now and the bedroom has been neglected big time.

Finding this portrait was a total inspirational kick in the ass.

Piece of cake. Challenge accepted. Bring it on.

(Easier said than done)

There. an entire post about pillows.  

and now everyone will know my room is secretly just a bunch of dumb tricked out ikea furniture.

Suck it. 

http://www.etsy.com/people/sukan

ikea hackerz

Hacked the shit out of our ikea coffee table!!!

Needed:
Klubbo coffee table (the frame)
Screwdrivers/Drill
MC HAMMER
Sandpaper
Some 2x4s
Wood stain of your choosing
Home Depot employee to cut your wood
Metal straps/something to attach all strips of wood
Patience

Upper body strength, or someone with it

Ikea klubbo coffee table. You're cute, but can do better.

First step... get wood. Har har. For this you'll need to end up with 7 pieces of 2x4s, each 97 cm long. We wanted the new top for our coffee table to be flush with the shorter sides, but have just a tiny bit of an overhang on the vertical sides. But you can play around with this a ton... just measure the size of the frame so you know what you're working with. I took all the wood outside to sand everything down, wipe everything with a damp cloth, and apply the stain. I used Minwax "English Chestnut". It smells gross and feels gross too. Yuckfest 2011.



Once everything had 1 coat of stain, I let them dry outside for 3 hours. Then I took a few pieces of them inside, just to see how I felt about the shade under my living room light. Momma like.

This is the part where you find someone else to do the rest of the boring labor for you with zero pay (slave). My boyfriend unscrewed the old top off the ikea table in about 3 seconds. Even a sloth could do it. (We actually ended up using the old table top to work on, as to not muck up our floors). After I let the wood dry for like 14 hours, I took it all inside and lined it up just PERFECT. Next, my boyfriend flipped everything over and centered the frame on top. The wood was not cut totally awesome, so not eeeeeeverything lines up perfectly, but life sucks and I've learned to love this and call it "character".

Making sure all boards were sitting snugly together in perfection, my boyfriend started drilling the frame down. Then this is where things get ghetto fabulous. I am not sure if this was ideal... but we just took an old piece of spare wood and hammered it down diagonally along everything. It's just a coffee table.... all it holds up are our feet...



It looks super awesome.