IKEA hacks
There was an article in the New York Times today about IKEA hacks. i.e. using IKEA stuff for something other than the original intent of the product. Mei Mei Yap (Kuala Lumpur), who is profiled in the slideshow that accompanies the article, maintains the website IKEA Hacker, which is worth a visit. Some of the hacks are quite clever, others, like the one I am about to describe are modest. Perhaps my next hack will be more ambitious. Maybe I'll build a locomotive from the extra hardware they give you.
John's hack:
This may be too simple to consider to be a hack, but I thought it was a good solution to two very real problems:
Problem 1: We had no place in our bedroom for a clothes hamper.
Problem 2: Each morning my wife goes into the master bathroom to get us each a cup of coffee (we have a coffee maker in the bathroom). My wife normally does this as I am incapable of waking up before she does. In addition to getting the coffee, she turns on the bathroom heater (we like it toasty in the bathroom), which means she has to close the door. As she left the bathroom, there was no place to set down even one of the cups so she could close the door. She would have to set one cup on the floor (very awkward in a barely awake state), close the bathroom door and then journey over to the bed to pour the coffee down my throat. (She is a marvelous wife)
Limitations: Not much space. The only unused space we had is a shallow alcove next to the bathroom; about 8" deep and 42" wide.
Solution needed: Something that would serve as a clothing hamper and a which would provide a surface my wife could rest a cup so she can close the bathroom door.
Solution: We took an IKEA SANDNES shoe storage cabinet, threw away the legs, and mounted the cabinet directly to the wall. Instead of using it for shoes, we use it as a hamper. The two right flippers hold whites and the left ones hold the darks. We didn't need a lot of hamper storage as the washer-dryer is in the adjacent bathroom. Works for us.
Incidentally, all of IKEA's shoe storage solutions appear to be designed for men with extremely tiny feet. For example, only three of my shoes (not 3 pair) will fit into one of the SANDNES flippers.
John's hack:
This may be too simple to consider to be a hack, but I thought it was a good solution to two very real problems:
Problem 1: We had no place in our bedroom for a clothes hamper.
Problem 2: Each morning my wife goes into the master bathroom to get us each a cup of coffee (we have a coffee maker in the bathroom). My wife normally does this as I am incapable of waking up before she does. In addition to getting the coffee, she turns on the bathroom heater (we like it toasty in the bathroom), which means she has to close the door. As she left the bathroom, there was no place to set down even one of the cups so she could close the door. She would have to set one cup on the floor (very awkward in a barely awake state), close the bathroom door and then journey over to the bed to pour the coffee down my throat. (She is a marvelous wife)
Limitations: Not much space. The only unused space we had is a shallow alcove next to the bathroom; about 8" deep and 42" wide.
Solution needed: Something that would serve as a clothing hamper and a which would provide a surface my wife could rest a cup so she can close the bathroom door.
Solution: We took an IKEA SANDNES shoe storage cabinet, threw away the legs, and mounted the cabinet directly to the wall. Instead of using it for shoes, we use it as a hamper. The two right flippers hold whites and the left ones hold the darks. We didn't need a lot of hamper storage as the washer-dryer is in the adjacent bathroom. Works for us.
Incidentally, all of IKEA's shoe storage solutions appear to be designed for men with extremely tiny feet. For example, only three of my shoes (not 3 pair) will fit into one of the SANDNES flippers.
posted by 20-20 at 8:51 PM
4 Comments:
I just saw this on the ikea hacker website! I have been really struggling with a solution for my dirty clothes. This looks amazing but I'm just wondering how much does it really hold? I am somewhat familiar with this product, and I'm having a hard time picturing a pair of jeans in here.
Grace, it will hold a pair of jeans, although to tell the truth, we simply put jeans into the machine (4 steps away). i.e. to store them until we are going to wash them. Also, we don't wear jeans very often. Perhaps once a week or so. So, we only wash them about once every 3-4 weeks. Other than that, the thing holds all our stuff from a week to 10 days.
Very cleverr! How did you shorten it, and how did you find a top to match so perfectly? The one on the Ikea site is 4 tall and 1 wide.
never mind- I didn't realize that this configuration is one of the choices. I guess if you had a lot of laundry, you could put two tall ones side by side!
Post a Comment
<< Home