Category: Flat-pack Hacks

This desk is made from two IKEA kitchen units and a counter-top that the customer found in Bargain Corner in the Belfast store. The unit had a small imperfection tht I was able to remove because I had to cut the counter-top to make it fit into the space that the customer had.

This desk is about 2.3m long and accommodates eveything that the customer needs to work from home. It cost less than any desk that the customer could buy in a store and was easily dismantled in about 15 minutes when the customer had to re-decorate this room and move to another room for a couple of weeks.

This is a simple way to finish a very ordinary piece of plastic furniture to make it stronger, more useful and individual. This is a simple piece of pine screwed to the top of the IKEA Trones shoe box. The custmer uses the box to store bedroom essentials and the shelf to charge phones while they sleep. The shelf took five minutes to fit and cost less than £10. Oiling the surface of the pine was the most time-consumng job but I did it the night before at home so everythig was fitted in about fifteen minutes so there was minimal inconvenience to the customer.

These shoe storage cupboards are two standard Bissa cabinets. These are screwed together for strength and I then built a frame from offcuts of partitions that the custome had left over from a kitchen refit. The meter box is accessed by slipping one of the doors off and the meter can be read easily by loking between the second and third doors.

This area was dead space before the customer decided to install this capacious storage. The previous ugly cupboard in which the meter box sat is no longer an offence to the eyes.

This was a cheap, fast and effective way to convert useless space into a functional and pretty area of the hall. We were lucky with the measurements. These units cannot be cut to suit.

The customer liked these IKEA Hejne shelves but they were 97mm too long for the space in her porch where she wanted to keep her flowers.

I cut the ends from the shelves and refited the original end batons and then built the shelves in situ.

If standard flat-pack furniture does not fit the space where you want to put it, it can often be cut and reassembled to fit perfectly.

The alternative to this solution was a bespoke set of shelves, which would have been considerably more expensive.

When there is never enough storage space:

The customer used IKEA Trones storage bins for extra storage to utilise the vacant space where a bannister had once been at the head of the stairs. I made the frame and fitted the four Trones bins inside it. This space is now functional and is much more effectively utilised as a bannister and as a storage area.