Ever since I saw Kim Johnson’s Ikea hacked kitty shelf I’ve wanted to make one of my own. The clever mod cuts an Ikea diaper changing table in half to create two wall shelves affixed to the wall.
With an Ikea gift card given as a wedding gift, I set out to make my own. Along the way, with the help of my sculptor father (who is a crafty carpenter, plumber, and general genius on the side), I made some adjustments to Kim’s original schematics. After the jump, how to make my version of Kim’s clever hack.
It seems the craft and style blogosphere is on an infinite quest to come up with as many alternative ways to create DIY headboards as possible. At least once a week, someone’s come up with a way to use magazines or post-its or bicycles as a focal point to set their snuggly space apart.
So, this hack, which takes an existing headboard and makes something from it, is both welcomed and refreshing. Kate of Centsational Girl came up with this unique approach for creating a coat rack.
“A little while ago, I bought a spindly old-fashioned twin headboard at the local thrift store with every intention of turning it into a bench. I’d seen the idea traveling around on some blogs, and loved it.After some thought, I decided I had less use for a bench, and greater use for a coat rack in my guest space. I had a bare wall, so why not fashion the headboard into a rack for scarves, sweaters, jackets, robes, or hats for my guests?… Now, the twin headboard has been transformed into an architecturally decorative piece, providing both form and function.”
Litter boxes; the one major drawback to living with cats. Not only do they hold stinky presents, but they tend to be pretty unsightly. In recent years there have been somedesign improvements but even with a good looking crapper, do you really want to see the soiled litter within? It’s the equivalent of keeping the toilet seat up. Why look at it if you don’t have to?
Through Shelterrific I found this rad litter box hideaway. What makes Out of Sight more than just a box hiding a litter box is that it also helps keep litter from tracking all over your home. An Astro-turf style carpet both on the second floor, where the litter box is, and the first floor entrance, catch loose kernels from your cat’s feet.
The box is made of 1/2 inch thick panels of high grade plastic coat melamine. All the edges are “edge banded,” which seals them from absorbing litter box misses. The back panel is coated as well, and features ventilation holes. The Out of Sight Litter Box sells for $170 to $190 depending on the finish you get and doesn’t include an actual litter box. You can fit most trays (up to 19 x 16 inch) within, though Out of Sight also sells its own high wall box for $45.
Dogs love being outside. If you’re lucky enough to have a fenced yard your pup can frolic in you probably already know how important it is to have a place where your dog can retreat from the sun. A shady tree can do, but if a dog house is in order, you probably don’t want just anything sitting amongst your flower beds and vegetable garden.
Sustainable Pet Designs’ beautiful green roof dog homes are a gorgeous addition if you have the money to spend on one of these custom designed homes, but if you don’t, check out David Neighbor’s prefab Architectura dog house.
Above and below: Recycled wood Armoires by RenziVivian.
I love taking old things and finding exciting new ways to repurpose them in our home. While wandering through the internet the other day, I stumbled upon these great armoires by RenziVivian.
Using existing parts of discarded furniture, these pieces are cobbled together like a big wooden quilt. The style and vintage of the various elements have little to do with one another and when combined make a unique scrapbook of references to different times and trends. The pieces can apparently be used for computer desks, televisions, or clothing storage. I couldn’t locate a place to actually purchase these armoires, but I think a similar DIY project could happen in your own home.
While we are on the subject a reclaiming wood and making artful and functional objects for your home, I would love to direct your attention to Whit McLeod. When my husband and I first arrived in Humboldt county I noticed some of his work on display in a local gallery. I was immediately attracted to the impeccable craftsmanship and the idea that all the wood was salvaged from 70-gallon oak wine barrels. Living in wine country makes these used barrels easy to obtain and McLeod reuses the wood beautifully.
Whit McLeod Folding Chair from reclaimed wine barrels.
Ever since Garth and I suddenly had a large new house to fill with furniture, I have been trying my hand at upholstery. My first attempt was a five-dollar chair we picked up at a garage sale. I found that carefully removing the original fabric from the chair and noting the order in which you had to remove the fabric seemed to be the key to a successful job. Keeping the fabric for any given area in one piece when you remove it automatically provides you with a pattern to help cut from your new fabric. I recently tackled another chair reupholstery project and followed this same logic.
We stumbled on this new chair at a thrift store several months ago and I fell in love with it. The curvy back and button tufting is great, and reupholstering it didn’t seem like a task that would be too impossible as long as I was attentive with my chair dissection.
Our living room is painted a bright shade of green and I wanted an upholstery fabric with a fun print that could hold its own against the green walls. I decided on this Alexander Henry tattoo print in an upholstery weight—I liked the quirky print and the colors went well with artwork I already have hanging on the walls. To determine how much fabric I would need, I consulted an upholstery chart and selected a similar chair. Once the fabric was cut and I was back home, I realized that the white and gold wood of the chair just wasn’t going to sing with the new fabric. I would have to paint the chair as well.
Before I could paint, I carefully removed all the fabric from the chair and masked the areas I didn’t want to paint. I primed the wood with a spray primer and headed off to find the right paint color.
I like to use spray paint for a job where I want to avoid brush strokes and this was one of those jobs. A local gallery stocks a wide assortment of high quality spray paints with waaaay more color options than the hardware store. The brand I used, Sabotaz 80, turned out to be really excellent spray paint. Sabotaz is a medium pressure spray, which means the paints comes out evenly and smoothly and when buying a can you are given two different spray caps to help control the size of the spray area. I was very impressed with how easily I could control the paint and how evenly the color was distributed. Next time you have a spray painting craft get your hands on some of this!
The shipping pallet furniture move is no stranger to ReadyMade: the magazine has featured how-tos to make a picnic basket, a bed, heck, even a whole house!
So these handpainted pallet coffee tables by French collective Doobi are right at home. Sure, they aren’t entirely unique, but they’re plenty beautiful, and easily DIYable? Though Doobi doesn’t provide specific step-by-step instructions, but I imagine their process is pretty clear: grab a pallet, sand it, paint it, add some casters.
Doobi’s only apparent web presence is their Facebook group, which you can join to stay on top of their latest projects.
***The fine artists of Doobi emailed us to let us know they have a blog at http://doobi.over-blog.com/. Check it out!
During my angst-ridden teenage years, my stepmother constantly invited me to accompany her on weekend jaunts to estate sales around the Milwaukee area. I always demurred. I was sixteen with better things to do, like finding the perfect jeans and flat-ironing my curly hair. I finally made it to an estate sale this weekend and I’m kicking myself for not tagging along with my dear stepmom ten years ago. It’s not like I ever found the perfect jeans or figured out how to straighten my hair anyways.
This estate sale was billed as an “Urban Dig” by Lynne McDaniel, the organizer and owner of Chicago vintage shop An Orange Moon. The home belonged to the state of Illinois’ first Black chief nurse anesthetist, Willye Tillman. Ms. Tillman was born in 1928 and passed on in November of 2009. Judging from the contents of her condo, she lived a full and colorful life.
Ms. Tillman did a lot of traveling. My first find during the “dig” was a Brazilian-Porteguese conversational guide printed in Rio de Janerio in 1961 (Foi atropelado: He was knocked down). I also walked out with vintage postcards from Jamaica and Paris, addressed to travel clubs she belonged to.
The McMansion set have it made—sprawling three- and four-car garages and 2,000-square-foot basements to house all the tools and materials and supplies one could ever need. But the rest of us have the need to create, too, which means we need a place to hang and organize our tools on a much smaller scale.
Instructables user SensoryHouse found this rolling pegboard cart at Overstock.com for an unbelievable, totally NOT overstock-ly price of $980.00. Thinking to himself, as most ReadyMakers would, “that’s a sheet of pegboard on wheels…” he made it happen on his own, instead.
Their design involves welding the frame, but 1/2″ galvanized pipe and connectors would work just as well, or you could try modding a clothes rack or a pre-made garage organizer from the home store.
Everyone deserves to be organized…especially those who are proud of their small square footage, and are pumped to remake 1,000 products on the cheap.
Dateline 1995: Thirteen-year-old me walks out of the local shopping mall novelty gift shop with an inflatable ottoman, in burgundy velour, only to take it home and find out there’s a hole in it. I convince my older sister to take me back a few days later, and the clerk, in super ’90s gold framed glasses, tells me “Sorry, we no longer carry those. They’re outta style.” So, I was pretty sure I’d never see any again…I mean, the lady at the mall said they weren’t cool, right?
Polish design firm Malafor showcased the “Blow Sofa” at IMM Cologne a few weeks ago. It’s made from 100% recycled paper bags, then attached with giant rubber bands to a collapsible metal frame. See more at bookofjoe.
From Oliver Gregoire, the Eclosion, below, features an adjustable backrest angle, depending on how inflated it is.
I confess to not having set foot in a neighborhood furniture store for most of my adult life. From the outside, they look pretty scary, with their rows of overstuffed couches and expensive mattresses. I wasn’t that interested because thrift stores and Craigslist yielded so many amazing finds.
All of this is pretty ironic since I grew up on a farm outside of a town dominated by one of Nebraska’s largest furniture stores, Ernie’s in Ceresco. The children of Ceresco always looked forward to a visit to Ernie’s since they always offered free popcorn and soda (plus mattresses to bounce on and plenty of secret hiding places). I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for Ernie’s.
When we moved to Humboldt County, California, the amazing thrift store furniture dried up. Craigslist here is a fraction of what we were used to in Atlanta and Orange County. When we started looking for a couch after we moved into our new house, we quickly realized that we were going to have to broaden our search.
For kicks, we went into a couple of local furniture stores to see if there might be some neglected mid-century modern furniture, or at least something with “clean lines”.
While Gillian and her family underwent a full kitchen renovation, they opted to keep their culinary home airy and their above-counter space clear of cabinets.
But, half the cabinets means half the storage, so came up with a solution to keep the headroom they’d hoped for: “Instead of adding the upper cabinets we had avoided, we sunk a set of six half sized lockers into the wall between our kitchen and powder room. The lockers not only provide ample food storage space, they have made organizing simple too. We now have a baking locker, a canned goods locker, a kids snack locker and even a (locked) liquor locker.”
Say that last one three times fast.
The utilitarian storage approach actually integrates quite well into the rest of the space. If you can’t cut a huge hole in your wall to accommodate a bay of lockers, this steel tool chest approach spied by Remodelista accomplishes a similar aesthetic.
The goals of the great designers of the Mid-Century era—like Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia, and Paul McCobb—always centered around bringing good design to the masses, through the use of contemporary materials (like fiberglass) and manufacturing techniques (such as molded plywood). IKEA, the international megastore renowned for collaborating with talented designers, offers a similar approach—bring good design to the masses through the use of contemporary materials (like, well, fiberboard) and manufacturing techniques, particularly their patented flat-pack technology.
The effect of these similarities? The twenty-first century IKEA actually becomes a great place to find some mid-century modern inspired items on a budget. Here’s a few ideas.
Chris Gardner lives and makes things (music, art, furniture, dinner, messes) in Columbus, Ohio. He contributes to the home-design community Curbly, and also runs ManMade, a DIY and handmade site for the postmodern male. Contact Chris | Read posts by Chris
Garth Johnson and Claire Joyce are a pair of artists who are renovating and decorating their first home, a 1905 Victorian in Eureka, California. They would like to share the joys and frustrations of home-ownerhsip, and to hear about the same from you. See Claire's art here, and get more of Garth on his blog, Extreme Craft. Claire and Garth's home-owning adventures to date are collected at Keeping Up With the Johnsons, also on ReadyMade. Contact Garth | Contact Claire Read posts by Garth | Read posts by Claire
Sonia Zjawinski is the co-founder of the pet site Pawesome. She's been obsessed with animals ever since she could grab hold of her parents' first cat, Pimpek. When she's not wrangling cats or training dogs she's writing for Unpluggd, Wired, the New York Times, and ReadyMade. Contact Sonia | Read posts by Sonia
Megan Jeyifo is a twenty-something married who loves black coffee, chaotic thrift stores, picking up new crafts and putting them down after 25% mastery has occurred, repurposing castoffs, the back porch, her dog, the Midwest and letters on real pages. She writes the blog Urban Casita and lives in the great city of Chicago. Contact Megan | Read posts by Megan
Ever since I saw Kim Johnson’s Ikea hacked kitty shelf I’ve wanted to make one of my own. The clever mod cuts an Ikea diaper changing table in half to create two wall shelves affixed to the wall.
