Turn a $50 Ikea chair into a unique statement piece that looks like a million bucks, with this clever Ikea hack. You'd never know that this DIY leather lounge chair, from Style Me Pretty Living, was previously an Ikea chair. The new look gives this inexpensive chair a more mid-century vibe. Visit Style Me Pretty Living for the full tutorial and more photos.Swap a crib for the bottom bed on the Ikea Mydal bunk bed. See the how-to here. Use a spice rack as a clothing rack for baby clothes. Get more inspiration here. Turn a Rast nightstand into a modern dollhouse. Learn how to make it here. Organize your mudroom with Ikea bookcases. Make getting out the door in the morning that much easier! Get the tutorial here. Make a Kura bed into a cozy reading nook. See how to do it (plus how to use the Kura to create other amazing projects for kids) here. Use the Grundtal knife rack to organize small metal toys. Spruce up the Latt table with a world map.
Get the step-by-step instructions here. Add a fun border to plain curtains. See how to do the stripes here and the pom-pom trim here. Give an Ikea changing table a colorful upgrade. Get the tutorial here. Make a play kitchen from Ikea nightstands. They even have lights inside! See how to make the stove here and the microwave and fridge here. Or give the Ikea play kitchen a modern makeover. Seriously, this kitchen is prettier than mine. See how easy it is here. Give simple shelves a celestial upgrade. Get the plans here. Or get the look with napkin holders. Snap them up here. Add a Billy bookshelf to the Gulliver crib. Even though your baby probably can’t read. See how they did it here. Add a chalkboard top to the Lack side table. See how to do it here. Make the Lego table of your kids’ dreams. Turn a coffee table into a toy workbench. See the instructions here. Make your own light-up table.
See the step-by-step here. Turn a shoe rack into a play supermarket. It’s also easy to fold up and move around! Turn the iconic Strandmon chair into a rocker. For parents who want to feed their babies in style. Use masking tape and white paint to make an old Ikea dresser seriously stylish. Use floating shelves to organize kiddos’ closets. Get more info here. Turn an Ikea crib into a co-sleeper. Get the instructions (along with important safety information) here. Turn the rolling Raskog cart into a homework station. Find out more here. Create a custom closet with Billy bookshelves. Get detailed instructions here. Make over a Hemnes dresser to turn it into a beautiful piece for a nursery. Find the man in the moon in Ikea’s Fado lamp. Organize art supplies in a utensil holder. Use Ikea wardrobe units to create built-ins around a window seat. Find out how a blogger created it here. Use an Ikea kitchen storage system to organize diapers.
See the tutorial here. Use the Flort remote control caddy to organize your car. Want more great parenting tips? Sign up for the BuzzFeed Parents newsletter and you’ll get them in your inbox twice a week!Today’s post brings me great pleasure to share! It’s a secret project I’ve been working on since I was 7 weeks pregnant. It is my first DIY project for baby Crowder. (First person to come up with a solid nickname for the IBK Fetus gets a prize!) I’ve always been in love with wingback rockers. You might as well trade your first born child for one, and then, what’s the point?! The rocker on the left came from Nurseryworks, and the rocker on the right is from Pottery Barn Kids. And then, it hit me hard like my pregnant emotions during country music. I could EASILY make my own wingback rocker. All I would need to do is find a wingback chair, and some rocking chair runners. It was so simple. I thought “surely, this has been done a million times.”
But I googled it hard, and didn’t find anything on the matter. (But in the Internet’s defense, my googling skillz are weak like a teenage girl at a One Direction concert.) We picked up the Strandmon Wingback chair from IKEA, for $279. I looked online and found a place that sells unfinished wood rocking chair runners. I order a pair of adult large in maple. We measured where we would need to drill holes for the legs to attach to the runners. The holes need to be 1&1/8″ in diameter. The center of that hole needs to be 7 1/2″ in from each end. The hole needs to be 3/4″ deep. **DISCLAIMER** Double check those measurements by holding up your runners to the legs of the chair to make sure it ‘dry fits.’ It has been brought to my attention that there is variation in the legs of the Strandmon, and my measurements might not be a perfect fit for your chair. We used the drill press at my parents’ house. But if you have a cordless drill, you can use a forstner bit to drill the same kind of hole.
My two favorite men! I spent countless hours in this shop, learning the ways of woodworking and DIY from a great teacher. We brought the runners home and fitted them to the chair. Fit like a glove. Now we had to match the runners to the legs of the chair. Instead of painting the runners, I thought it would look better if we stained them black. I will admit, I did help with staining. BUT I was very careful to not get it on me (and when I did, I scrubbed it right off), and we had all the windows open, with a fan going. Aaron did most of the staining. The wood was so blond, it took several coats. This is how thin it still looked after the first coat. Several coats later, it was looking like a dead match to the legs of the Strandmon. We used a matte poly finish. I love this poly. And it has a soft touch. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is magical. Buy it and try it. After they were dry, it was just a matter of attaching the runners to the chair.
We put the runners in place, and drilled a skinny little pilot hole to make sure the wood didn’t crack when we put the screws in. Let’s take a minute to talk about how much Buster loves the chair being upside down. Here’s a montage of Buster in his fort, on several different days. Now that your heart is sufficiently melted, we can get back to the real work. Then we switched out for a bigger drill bit to make a hole (not all the way down! Just slightly below the surface) the same size of the screw head to counter sink the screw. Then we sanded the bottoms of the feet, and coated the holes in the runners with wood glue. After we put the runners in place, with the wood glue, we use spax screws and secured the runners. We filled the holes with black wood putty. And now, it’s ready to rock. And let me tell you, it rocks like you wouldn’t believe. It’s probably as good as Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. Or when Adele came out of the womb singing her feelings.