Here, we've rounded up six best hacks to transform common IKEA furniture into a stylish, one-of-a-kind statement piece. With just a few buys from your local hardware store, these smart DIY projects prove that a little effort and creativity can elevate almost any item, regardless of the initial price tag. Try these genius hacks to create a statement piece of furniture that you'll never find in a friend's home again. There's no debate that when you're styling a home on a budget, IKEA's line of simple and affordable wares tick every box. Unfortunately, it's that very appeal that attracts millions of shoppers to the ubiquitous Swedish store, resulting in the same flat-pack dressers and coffee tables appearing in homes around the world. Yes, it's the home décor equivalent of turning up to an event in the same dress as your best friend—flattering that you share the same taste, but hardly preferred. There's no debate that when you're styling a home on a budget, IKEA's line of simple and affordable wares tick every box.
Here, we've rounded up six best hacks to transform common IKEA furniture into a stylish, one-of-a-kind statement piece. Try these genius hacks to create a statement piece of furniture that you'll never find in a friend's home again. Black and Gold Entry Table Ruth Eileen Photography for Style Me Pretty The Skill Level: Intermediate. The Essentials: An IKEA desk, gloss black spray paint, gold leaf, adhesive, foam brush, painter's tape, and sealant. The Tricky Part: Style Me Pretty's desk transformation is surprisingly straight-forward, but affixing gold leaf can be a fiddly task. Use painter's tape to create a straight, even line and layer gold leaf for a luxurious finish. Kellie Van for Le Zoe Musings The Skill Level: Beginner. The Essentials: Glass vases, newspaper, gold spray paint, and double sided tape. The Tricky Part: This smart hack by Kellie Van of Le Zoe Musings uses the torn edge of a sheet of newspaper to create a unique, uneven stencil.
Be sure to carefully secure the newspaper stencil to the glass with double-sided tape, to ensure the gold spray paint leaves a precise mark. Dresser With Brass Details The Essentials: An IKEA wooden dresser, small foam roller, gold spray paint, brass knobs, and white, acrylic-based paint. The Tricky Part: Acrylic-based paint is thick and sticky, and can be an absolute pain to remove if you make a mess. Use a drop sheet when painting this dresser, and allow ample time for each drawer to properly dry before sliding it back into the unit. The Skill Level: Advanced. The Essentials: IKEA floating shelf, copper foil roll, scissors, spray adhesive, and a hammer. The Tricky Part: Regular IKEA hacker Livet Hemma has concealed a common floating shelf with a roll of copper foil. Applying metal foil can be challenging—the thin sheets are very sharp so wear protective gloves when cutting the roll to shape. Metal and Acrylic Bar Cart The Essentials: IKEA laptop table, spray paint, acrylic sheet, glass cutter, caster wheels, drill, and patterned paper.
The Tricky Part: This IKEA laptop table comes without a base platform, so you'll need to cut a sheet of acrylic and drill it to each leg. Carefully read through Style Me Pretty's instructions before you start and practice drilling through an off-cut before trying the hack—every mistake is visible on clear acrylic board so you've only got one shot to get it right. The Essentials: IKEA cutting board, leather straps, rivets, and nailheads (optional). The Tricky Part: It doesn't get much easier than this DIY hack by Livet Hemma. In fact, the hardest thing you'll have to do is braid the leather and affix a rivet.Ikea biffed by going after IkeaHackers, the fan site that shares all kinds of new uses and smart mods for the Swedish superstore's affordable furniture—seriously, you can't buy this kind of devotion. Until founder Jules Yap sets up shop under a new name, let's have a look at a few of the projects that make her site so endlessly scrollable. There's such a range of finished works—from "Oh oh I could do that!" to "Why would you do that?!" to "Hey now that gives me an idea..."—that it's tough not to fall into a DIY-design clickhole.
Here are some of the adventures-in-how-to that stood out to us. Share your own personal faves below! There's no end to what you can to with an Expedit (RIP). This awesome hamster habitat won the Hack of the Year in 2010, and it's easy to see why: Some small modifications to the Expedit—plus a little glass—turned Ikea's beloved shelving system into a home for a furry friend. You'd never guess that this sleek, sinuous privacy screen—which turns the bathroom of an open loft into its own space—was made from $2 Rektangel vases. But yep: Hundreds of these glass thangs were tipped on their sides and repurposed. There's a reason this incredible personal library won the 2011 Hack of the Year. It's made from 60—yes, 60—Billy bookshelves, Ikea's bargain basement bookshelf. Attached to the French country home of Chas Saunter, they look undeniably classy. Here's the archetypal example of IkeaHacking brilliance. Take one stool, four nested file organizers, and boom: A transformable table with tons of storage space for under $10.
All you have to do is glue the folders together and attach them to the stool. For an added bonus, the nested folders inside the table pull out to change its profile. Things really get cool when an Ikea hacker has soldering skills: This brilliant hacker turned a plain old wood table top into a beautiful working guitar. Now this is unexpected. Tracing around an old kid's jacket will give a decent enough pattern for this cute little coat. Lined or unlined, it's pretty ingenious—though apparently it will dull the hell out of your sewing machine needle. I'm wondering whether to try to make one for myself... Here's a solution for all those space-challenged Ikea hackers out there (and aren't there so many!). This Dutch hacker took a shelf and a cabinet and mounted them to the wall, creating what might be the skinniest desk for an iMac ever built. The best part might be the fact that there aren't any errant cables hanging around: They're all stored inside the upper cabinet. Okay, this is admittedly not for everyone, but it's a smart solution!
An industrious family member made this for her grandma's home in Malacca, Malaysia, which is lacking upstairs plumbing. Adding a raised section to the top and a few privacy panels between the legs of a Stefan chair, a small bowl can easily slide in to the hole. Noted: next time she's choosing a model with arms, for extra comfort (though it would be tough to beat Homer's Lazy Man Toilet Seat for sheer sit-back-and-relax luxury). This was designed to allow or opening the drawers under a Mandal bed, but relocating two of the Frosta stool's legs looks like it would make a killer sofa table, too (as long as the height was right). There are a lot of storage beds on IkeaHackers, but there's something about the structure and staging of this one, which used nine Faktum cabinets, that makes it look particularly perfect for a small space. It's involved (with extended blog post how-to here), but if you had the tools and the time and the drive—it would be incredible to make something this functional look this good.
This is another project that's going to require some power tools, but if you're keen on sewing and have the room for a dedicated place to stitch, this is a might purdy use of an Ingo table. Additional tutorial here, if you're into it. Okay, hey—we're back to unconventional spots to pee and poo. The name here really says it all, and all it took was a long piece of MDF, a pair of Ikea PS Lockers, and a cat flap inserted into a custom cut-out in the side. Slide a litter box in the drawer and you're good to go.This effect was made pretty much exclusively out of Trofast toy storage boxes affixed to the walls and ceiling: some facing out and filled with magazines and books, some facing the other way and lit from within by LEDs. Ikea's iconic Frosta stool is a cult favorite—and here, it's turned into a beautifully abstract bookshelf that seems to climb up the wall like a vine. Rather than spring for some spendy backsplash, this cool kitchen has a series of Rationell glass panels installed flush up against the wall between counter and cabinet.