So, I recently did my first "Ikea hack" and Eric and I both love the results, so I thought I would share. It is a stained board backed book shelf.
I got the idea from Pinterest from a site called Over the Big Moon. Now, theirs was done with pallets. As a side note, I would never use pallets to make anything I would use inside my home. I have worked with pallets at my engineering job (since we shipped every generator on one) and I have seen how dirty they are and the gross chemicals they are sprayed with to kill insects. Unless I knew where the pallets were from, that they hadn't been sprayed, and how they were used, I would seriously recommend passing.
Back to the project. To start out, I had something like the following from Ikea, but in the imitation pine color. I forgot to take a beginning picture and it doesn't appear they make the exact book shelf we have. Eric had purchased it back while we were dating a long long time ago for around $20. It somehow had made it all this way, so I wasn't ready to give up on it.
So, here is what I did to make my boring little book shelf quite a bit nicer.
1) Painting
Step one was to cover over the pine laminate. I chose to sand the laminate lightly, prime it with Zinsser primer (2 coats), paint it with satin Behr Premium latex paint in a cream color (3 coats), and finished it with polycrylic (2coats) for durability. This was the most time intensive process and was done over the course of a couple of weeks.
2) Backing
Next, came the wood backing to replace the cheap cardboard. I went over to Home Depot and bought some cheap 1"x4" pine boards. I tried to find ones that were as straight as possible. Eric cut the boards to size for me for the back. I then stained them using a Minwax espresso stain with polyurethane included.
3) Attaching
I nailed the boards to the back of the bookcase as carefully as possible. I did have one nail pop through slightly on the inside. (darn it!) Luckily, it's noticeable with items on the shelf. I initially tried using liquid nails and because the laminate flexed when I moved the shelf, the boards started coming loose. It might have worked better had I clamped the boards down while using the liquid nails.
Here is the final product in Nathaniel's room.
It looks about a million times better. I feel like doing this to all of my book shelves.
-Anna
I got the idea from Pinterest from a site called Over the Big Moon. Now, theirs was done with pallets. As a side note, I would never use pallets to make anything I would use inside my home. I have worked with pallets at my engineering job (since we shipped every generator on one) and I have seen how dirty they are and the gross chemicals they are sprayed with to kill insects. Unless I knew where the pallets were from, that they hadn't been sprayed, and how they were used, I would seriously recommend passing.
Back to the project. To start out, I had something like the following from Ikea, but in the imitation pine color. I forgot to take a beginning picture and it doesn't appear they make the exact book shelf we have. Eric had purchased it back while we were dating a long long time ago for around $20. It somehow had made it all this way, so I wasn't ready to give up on it.
So, here is what I did to make my boring little book shelf quite a bit nicer.
1) Painting
Step one was to cover over the pine laminate. I chose to sand the laminate lightly, prime it with Zinsser primer (2 coats), paint it with satin Behr Premium latex paint in a cream color (3 coats), and finished it with polycrylic (2coats) for durability. This was the most time intensive process and was done over the course of a couple of weeks.
2) Backing
Next, came the wood backing to replace the cheap cardboard. I went over to Home Depot and bought some cheap 1"x4" pine boards. I tried to find ones that were as straight as possible. Eric cut the boards to size for me for the back. I then stained them using a Minwax espresso stain with polyurethane included.
3) Attaching
I nailed the boards to the back of the bookcase as carefully as possible. I did have one nail pop through slightly on the inside. (darn it!) Luckily, it's noticeable with items on the shelf. I initially tried using liquid nails and because the laminate flexed when I moved the shelf, the boards started coming loose. It might have worked better had I clamped the boards down while using the liquid nails.
Here is the final product in Nathaniel's room.
 |
| final book case |
 |
| stained back |
-Anna
