My IKEA Hacks

I may have mentioned here before how much a fan I am of “the” IKEA… I may have mentioned it a lot.An IKEA-related site I stumbled upon recently has really become a favorite of mine. Jules runs the fantabulous IKEA hacker site - a blog featuring cleverly “hacked” items from IKEA. We exchanged emails recently, and I told her that I have a few hacks planned - because I do - but then I realized later that I have already hacked! Sure, these don’t compare to some of the ingenious ideas that you can find over at IKEA hacker, but they are hacks nonetheless.

IKEA Hensvik dresser customization
I bought this Hensvik chest of drawers for my daughter’s room, along with the Hensvik crib. Kaya’s room is done in a Hello Kitty theme, so I very easily customized the Hensvik dresser to suit the room - by adding cute Hello Kitty drawer pulls that I found at Target. Probably the easiest (and one of the cheapest) hack ever, and it can be done with any dresser that has drawer pulls - or that doesn’t - and with any style pulls. I’m a fan of simple design, so to be honest, I’m not usually big on fancy shmancy drawer pulls and hardware, but in this case, I liked the Hello Kitty faces enough and felt like they weren’t totally goofy or overpowering in the room.

IKEA Stripa wall shelf as spice rack
The next hack came about when I found some nifty spice jars that came in packages of 4. (I can’t find them on IKEA’s site for linkage.) But the BEKVÄM shelf they were displayed with wasn’t big enough to hold many of the jars. So I went on a hunt throughout the store to find a solution, and I’m happy to say that I found one! The jars fit perfectly on a STRIPA wall shelf (available in aspen or white), and since it’s twice the length of the Bekvam shelf, it holds way more jars. I have 10 spice jars on it, in fact, and I have room for 2 more. Some day when I’m a more adventurous cook, maybe I’ll put something in my 2 empty jars and add them to the shelf.

Portrait wall: IKEA Stripa shelves + Racket photo frames
Finally, here’s a fun little thing I did with more of the Stripa shelves and some very inexpensive frames I found at IKEA. I got a package of 3 RAKET frames for 99 cents. Not long after that on a return visit to IKEA, the same frames were on sale for a package of 3 for 49 cents. Yes, 3 4×6 wooden frames for 49 cents. Hey, they’re not the best frames in the world, but they’re solid, simple and functional - usually, that’s all I’m looking for anyway.

So to fill up a rather odd space in my kitchen (which is in a painfully gradual remodel - please try to ignore my 70s countertops and cabinets if you click the thumbnail to enlarge the pic!) I enlisted the Racket frames - like 14 of them - to hold photos of my two kids. I sized digital photos in Photoshop, converted them to B&W, and punched up the contrast a bit… printed them out on plain-jane-cheapie paper on my HP Photosmart inkjet printer.. cut to size, and whalla! I used 3 of the above-mentioned Stripa shelves in white (like the one I used in aspen for my spice rack hack) to hold the framed photos. If you wonder why I didn’t hang the shelves together and eliminate the gaps between them, it’s because my house is old and lots of things are off kilter. In order to have the shelves “touching”, I would not have been able to level them, and there would be a very noticable slant! Long story, but suffice it to say that it took quite a while (and too many wall anchors) to get the shelves figured out.

So, do you other Fix Chicks have any “hacks” of your own? Send them our way, and let’s see what unique uses you’ve found for every day stuff. I’ve added a Hacks category to feature DIY hacks that we’ve done ourselves, or those that you submit to us.

Be sure to visit IKEA hacker too, and submit IKEA hacks if you have them!