Table Day!

A while back, I set up some alerts so that I would be notified on specific new posts on Craigslist. I used the IFTTT website, which I use for multiple other things, like posting to Twitter, and emailing my Blog Posts. There are so many different capabilities that you should check out and see if they would work for you! If you're looking for specifics, feel free to contact me, too, and I can let you know exactly how I'm using it.

Anyways, one of the alerts that I set up was for the IKEA Stornas Table, and every now and then, I would get an email when one was posted on Craigslist. In the last seven or eight months, a few have shown up, but they always get snatched up quickly. The extendable table, which is the one that I was looking for, is very popular since it's a solid wood table with two leaves and extends to 115"! But, finally, I was able to get my hands on one. A woman in Cambridge, MA was selling one that she had no use for anymore, so I talked with her about picking it up and on a Tuesday after work, my mom and I braved rush-hour traffic from Providence to Cambridge in my sister's SUV - a day I declared as "Table Day," since I had been looking forward to getting this piece for about a week before we finally picked it up.

With only needing to remove the legs and the leaves, the table top fit in the vehicle with one end resting on the top of the driver and passenger seats and the other end resting on the floor of the cargo space. I had to slink down in my seat just a bit so that my head didn't hit the table, but it was worth it. My mom was a trooper though. She's so tiny, standing at just 5' tall, so her head was no where near the table top resting on the headrest of her seat, but she did help me carry the table into the house. When assembled, the table weighs about 170 pounds, according to the IKEA website, so even though the legs were off and the leaves were out, it still weighed a lot! I was so lucky to have her help, since I definitely wouldn't have been able to pick it up by myself.

I washed it down when I got it home and then attached the legs and added in both leaves. There are a few dings and scratches in it here and there, but that was both expected and fine with me since I was able to purchase the table for a significant discount. Plus, I picked up some of the stain that IKEA sells so that I can do some touch-ups on some of the more visible spots. The most important thing, though, is that the table fits really well in the room, although Dylan actually wishes it was longer! We still only have two chairs, and they are a different finish, because I purchased them back when I had plans to build our dining table and stain it a nice rich brown, so we will probably re-evaluate now and try to figure out what we want the chair style to be. Maybe we'll end up sticking with the IKEA Borje chairs but just go with the black-brown finish instead of the brown.

I can't wait to to style this table and the room, but as you can see in the background, I still need to add the chair rail molding and get the room painted, so that's next on the list for this space. What kind of styling do you think I should do for this table? Keep in mind that we have two cats, so tall or breakable items aren't really conducive to every-day decor. Also, with a table of 115", do I make a gigantic runner to put down the middle? Help please!

DIY: Expedit Hack - Wide Cubby and Legs

One of the things that I like the most about IKEA furniture is that not only does it have clean modern lines and awesome colors, but they all have the potential to be hacked!  There is an entire website dedicated to hacking IKEA furniture, and I'm no stranger to hacking, myself, as you'll remember my Orgel lamps that I hacked to add fabric shades.

Ever since I began designing the Family Room, I knew that I wanted the IKEA Expedit as the TV stand. The fact that it had all of these little cubbies to put our DVDs and video game consoles was perfect. However, the cubbies aren't exactly wide enough for a DVD player, and likely not wide enough for your Cable or Satellite box either, as those are typically around 15" and the cubbies are about 13".  To solve this, we decided to hack the unit, which didn't require any power tools or saws, which for Dylan, meant that it was perfect!

We followed the normal directions on setting up the Expedit unit, by attaching one of the long sides to one of the short sides first.  We put on the first short shelf, then the first long shelf, and then this is the point where we made some changes.

Instead of doing another short shelf and then a long shelf, we did the opposite - a long shelf and then a short shelf.  And yes, I know that sounds confusing, so I made you a diagram.

The black thick lines are the outside borders of the Expedit.  The small red lines are the small shelf dividers, and the long green lines are the long shelf dividers.  The layout on the left is how the Expedit is supposed to look, according to IKEA, and the layout on the right is what we did to make it fit our needs.

It's a little easier to see how we made the change now. Instead of putting a short board underneath the top long horizontal board, we put another long board, this time going vertically.  And then to the right of that long vertical board, we attached a small board, horizontally.  Because all of the pieces are essentially identical in the way they are put together, we didn't have to make any new holes for the dowel pegs to go through.  We did, however, have to make 4 of the wooden dowel pegs shorter.  The long boards (the green ones) have holes that go through completely so that they can attach to both of the short boards (the red ones) that meet up with it. Because of this, and the fact that we are using one of the long boards "improperly", we had to cut about 3/8" off from 4 of the pegs so that they didn't stick up through the long board and into the space we want the Cable box to go.  Not a big deal though - it was really easy. In fact, you don't even need a hack saw, although that would work really well.  We ended up using a large pair of wire cutters and it was perfect, although I bet you could get away with kitchen shears, pruning shears, and possibly even a flat-head screwdriver and a hammer, like you would use a chisel.

So, once you have your boards the way you want them, you can finish putting together the frame of the Expedit, securing everything together just like the IKEA directions say to.  Don't be concerned if you end up with extra boards. We ended up with an extra short board, which is a good thing, because I may or may not have accidentally chipped off an edge of the high-gloss finish...

After you have rearranged our boards, you may declare yourself done with this project, but we still had one more small hack to complete - attaching legs.  Since our unit will be placed on the long side, in order to hold our TV, we wanted it up off the floor so that the heat from our radiators could pass underneath it, and also for easier cleaning and so that the long side of the Expedit doesn't get too scratched when it's moved.  So, enter the IKEA Capita legs.  We originally got the 8" legs, but after getting the Expedit set up, we realized that adding 8" more to it's height would make the TV too high, so we exchanged them for the 4" ones.  They also have 6" ones available if you're interested.  

Anyways, I wasn't too logistical about placing the legs on the bottom, so I lined up the legs with the corners of the unit, and then pushed them inward about 1.5" so the screws didn't interfere with the assembly of the unit at the corners. The last thing I want is the piece to fall apart with the TV on it, right!

First off, make sure that if you hacked the shelf arrangement, that you are putting the legs on the side you want down.  You really don't want to go through these next steps just to realize that you put the legs on the top instead of the bottom!  So to attach the Capita legs, I just used one of the screws that came with the legs, and made a small indentation on the surface of the Expedit in where each screw will go, using the hardware as a guide.  

Using my drill, although a screwdriver would work fine too, I then attached the legs to the Expedit using the screws that were in the unit package.  I did not pre-drill the holes, as the interior of the Expedit structure is not solid wood, so they went in very easily.  

Depending on the weight of your television, you may want to add a leg or two to the middle of your unit. Our TV only weighs 50 pounds, but I just wanted to be extra careful, especially since we technically removed one of the weight-bearing shelf dividers from the unit.  

Once you have your legs attached, you can flip your piece over, set it in place, and then place your TV on top!  Our Cable box now fits in the top cubby, and when we bring the DVD player downstairs, it will be placed right under the Cable box.  

I think this looks great, and I can't wait to fix those cables back there so they don't show. And I have another neat little project planned for the Expedit - yes it is another hack. And I can't wait to get started on that project and show it to you!

Have you ever hacked an IKEA product? What did you do and how did you do it?

The Motherland Has Been Raided

In the wake of me almost becoming a member of the 9-finger club, Dylan and I decided to focus less on painting, and more on decor.  With one thumb less to work with, painting was going to be somewhat difficult, so we spent the Sunday after Christmas at my favorite-est store ever - IKEA!!!

The Motherland, as I will now refer to it, was amazing, as expected.  We spent just about 3 hours there, much to the dismay of both Dylan and his father, but we came out right on budget, surprisingly, and with almost everything checked off on the list.  It turns out that even though one of the rugs I wanted was listed as In-Stock on the website, it was actually off-site in their storage warehouse while the new addition is being added to the building, so we ended up taking another trip up there to pick it up.  

But, now I can say that we finally have some furniture for the house!  We got home, unpacked the truck, which Dylan's parents were so kind to join us for the trip and use their pickup truck, since our cars were just too small for the boxes of furniture.

After a delicious lunch with Dylan's parents to thank them for making the trip with us and letting us mooch off of their owning of a truck, we unpacked the kitchen items we purchased, including our new plates and bowls, and some champagne glasses, since they were on sale, and began putting our furniture together.

We started with the Family Room furniture, and got both of the Vittsjo pieces put together - the Nesting Tables and the Bookshelf.  And we ate dinner on the nesting tables that night, as our kitchen table is still covered in all sorts of junk from when we were painting.  And the bookshelf was left empty, and until this past weekend, it remained empty.  

But, we're getting somewhere with this space!  We ended up putting together the Expedit that we purchased too, but I'm going to save that for another post since we hacked it. I can't wait to show you how we changed it up! Also, I already have another trip to IKEA planned! I just wish that it was closer, but Dylan is very happy that it's not!

Dining Room Chairs and Swatches

Rugs have been pushed aside, ladies and gentlemen - and been replaced by Craigslist.  I hinted towards this last week, however, it has gotten much, much worse in the last few days.  It has come to a point where I now have over 45 alerts set for different search terms, and in addition to that, I have nine different Craigslist search tabs open on my Chrome browser.  I have been stalking that site at least once per hour, and have been finding some amazing things.

This weekend, Dylan and I went to visit my grandparents, and on our way down, stopped to take a look at some chairs, which we ended up buying.  These two chairs, the IKEA Borje chairs, are on my shopping list for our dining room, so I was so excited to see that these were the color that I wanted.

The seller said that they had only been used two or three times, and they are in excellent condition, so I totally believe her.  We bought them for $40 combined, tucked them away in the backseat of my car, and left her home with a smile on our faces! I mean, how can you not smile after getting such perfect chairs at a great price?! Each chair new from IKEA is $49, so getting two for less than the price of one was incredible!!

So, getting these chairs brings me to the next part of the plan - recovering the seats. I mentioned last week when I talked about the Klobo Loveseat that I wanted to recover both in a patterned fabric so that it ties the living and dining areas in together.  However, I was kind of worried that some of the patterns of fabric would clash and be too busy with the pattern on the rug - and boy was I right.  I didn't realize how busy some of those swatches ended up being, so I am very glad that I ordered them.

I laid all of the swatches out on the Klobo Loveseat, which is already in the living/dining room so using the natural light from the large picture window in that space, I was immediately able to eliminate some of the fabrics because they weren't the right color I was looking for.  You can kind of see the difference in the color of the fabrics compared to the paint swatch, which is the one that I have bordered in black, but trust me when I say that some of the colors that look like they match in this picture were totally off, like the one right above the paint swatch. Wow, was that an awful clash!

On the Arms: Premier Prints Small Dandelion Turquoise/White and Premier Prints Circles True Turquoise (Discontinued) 

On the Seat Back - Top Row: Premier Prints Solid Turquoise, Premier Prints Cameron Slub Aquarius, Richloom Sensu Mallard Teal

On the Seat Back - Bottom Row: Premier Prints Indoor/Outdoor Sticks Pacific

On the Seat - Top Row: Premier Prints Linked Jade, Premier Prints Indoor/Outdoor Towers Pacific, Premier Prints Jiri Stripe Jade, Premier Prints Linked Macon Apache Blue

On the Seat - Bottom Row: Premier Prints Lulu Stripe True Turquoise, Covington Majestic Velour Peacock, Premier Prints Dandelion White/True Turquoise, Premier Prints Nicole Slub Aquarius, Premier Prints Canopy Stripe Slub Aquarius

I wasn't able to test these out with the rug that I bought, because I actually exchanged the 8'x10' for the 9'x12', and haven't removed the new one from the packaging.  As you can see, there is just too much stuff in the room right now to be able to open it up, so I used my iPad to show the rug pattern with the fabric.  Turns out that the rug is a lot busier than I thought it would be, so we have actually decided to do two different fabrics.  And surprisingly, even though we chose a pattern and a solid, we will be using the pattern on the seats of the chairs!  

I love the chevron pattern above, and even though Dylan is not a big fan, he said he could deal with it in small quantities. Plus, this Premier Prints fabric isn't in-your-face chevron, like some of the other ones are, so I think that worked in my favor with getting him to agree to it!  The second fabric swatch is to die for. Seriously.  It's a turquoise velour, made by Covington, and it is the softest fabric I have ever felt. It's even softer than the Minky fabric that is so popular for baby blankets.  As soon as I touched this fabric, I wanted to lay on it, and knew that I had to have it.  Luckily for me, the color in the velour and the chevron is almost exactly the same, so Dylan suggested that we do the print on the chairs, since the angle in the chevron pattern matches slightly with the rug, and then we use the velour on the Klobo Loveseat.

Sold!

So, that's the plan. I have purchased the fabric and I am waiting for it to arrive.  I can't wait to get to work in recovering the chairs and the loveseat - and don't worry, I'll be posting a DIY so that you too can recover your IKEA furniture!

Have you ever recovered a piece of IKEA furniture? What problems did you come across in your process?  

The Epic IKEA Shopping List

I told you earlier this week that I was going to be taking an epic trip to IKEA to purchase some furniture and accessories for our house.  I have been making a spreadsheet of all the purchases we will be needing to make in the next few months, and for each room, there is at least one thing from IKEA.  I figured that I would give you a tour of all of the things that I have on my IKEA shopping list, and how they will be used in our home.  

Our first stop is the Family Room, which I know I have already explained most of it to you, but just for the sake of keeping everything together in one place, I will include here again.

So, as far as the IKEA items go, from this room, you'll see the most obvious piece, the Expedit, which will be our TV stand.  I will be getting it in the High-Gloss White color, and I will be hacking it to add four or five Capita Legs so that it sits just a little higher up off the floor.

The next piece you see in the design plan above is the coffee table, which is part of the Vittsjo Nesting Tables Set. I haven't decided what I will use the taller table for yet, but that can always go in a different room if it turns out there isn't enough space in this room.  Also part of the same collection is the Vittsjo Tall Shelving Unit, which actually isn't pictured above in the design plan, but it will go next to the television and the Expedit.  

And what you may not have noticed in the background of the design plan are the white Merete curtains for the windows.  I love that they are grommet curtains that I can use with the DIY curtain rods I have made out of electrical conduit.  

The Family Room design plan shows two lamps, one table and one floor, but those have since been removed from the actual plan - I just didn't update the visual I made in Photoshop.  

The next room is the small bedroom, which will be my Craft Room. I haven't previously shared my design plan for this room, so this will be the first chance you get to seeing how I am hoping it will turn out. I will make a full design plan though, because there are some other really cool items that I will be adding to the space, including my new library card catalog!

The first thing for the space is the Morum rug. It's a flat-weave rug that I am thinking will vacuum really well, which is important since there will be fabric scraps and thread clippings likely falling onto the floor.  

The next thing that I will be getting for this room will be opposite of the rug - the Fuga ceiling light. Currently, the space has one of those old globe lights that has probably been in place since the house was built, so I am really looking forward to switching this light out. I think it's the perfect mix of modern with functional, since the spotlights can be pointed wherever they are needed. 

Dylan and I used to have one of these Linnmon/Adils tables in the last apartment we had together, and it held up really well considering we were using it for food prep. So I put two of these tables on my shopping list, hoping that I am able to put them together in the center of the room to give me enough space to spread out large pieces of fabric.  

A while back, I shared the design plan for the Guest Bedroom, but like the Family Room, I wanted to include the IKEA items in this post.  There aren't too many for this room, because I have since removed the two nightstands and all the lamps in the room, and I already have the bureau, and the IKEA chair has been replaced by one that belonged to my grandmother before she passed away earlier this year.  

So, that only leaves us with two items from IKEA for this space: the Hampen Rug and the Werna Curtains.  I really love the green rug and hope that despite its small size, it will really help to bring some comfort into the space without overloading the room on the green color.  The curtains though, are dark, so I'm hoping that they will help to block the light when we have guests staying over, while at the same time, bringing some dimension to the room with that pop of dark color along the wall.  

The Living/Dining Room doesn't have a full design plan at this point.  I've been really struggling with it, since we have two functions planned - a Dining Room and a Living Room.  I have been debating building our table, but I'm not sure if that cost will be worth it in the end. I have to price out some wood from a lumber yard, because the types offered from the hardware stores are too soft to build a sturdy table.  If I don't end up building the table as planned, I will likely be purchasing the Stornas table from IKEA, which is made of solid wood.  To go along with the table, regardless of if it's built or bought, I will be purchasing ten of the Borje chairs in the Brown finish and the Gobo White seats.

I also thought that some white Lack shelves would look good along one of the walls to show off some of the little chotchkies that we have.  And then on the other side of the table, I was thinking of some sort of sideboard, and I have fallen in love with The IKEA Bjursta Sideboard.  However, I am having a really hard time justifying the price tag, especially since this isn't one of IKEA's solid wood pieces.

There is only one piece for the Master Bedroom that we will be purchasing, and that is this Expedit Workstation so that we can setup our office in our bedroom. With it being as big as it is, we will have more than enough space to set up an office area, especially since the futon currently in our bedroom will be moving to the craft room for additional guest sleeping when necessary.  

Aside from these bigger items, we will be purchasing some decor items, like picture frames for my favorite digital art prints, vases, and fake flowers, and some succulents and actual plants and the cute little tabletop Socker greenhouse you see below.  The venue that we got married at, the Roger Williams Botanical Center, has a few of these plants in the greenhouses, so I thought that this would be the perfect way to remind us of the absolutely beautiful wedding day that we had.  

So, that concludes the bulk of my IKEA shopping list. To make sure that I don't bore you, I didn't include too many of the little things that we will be getting, like some additional accessories for my craft room and some sets of sheets for the guest bedroom and the futon.

But, that's my list! What do you think? What are your favorite pieces above? What about the pieces you have in your home - which are your favorites? Any suggestions on must-have items from IKEA?

All images except the Family Room and Guest Bedroom Design Plans courtesy of IKEA.