Ikea Hack Built-In - Part One

This is not a project to be taken lightly, and certainly not alone, though I am so pleased we did! This project brought together all of our combined interior design and DIY knowledge to create something that is both functional and beautiful! I've always believed that a home doesn't have to be ugly if you need it to be functional, and this built-in proves it! We now have huge amounts of storage, replacing the disjointed and separate sideboards we used to have whilst gaining shelf storage from what was dead space. Read on to find out how we transformed not on the room but how we live our day to day lives.

First, we will discuss the planning process as these types of projects will triumph or crumble depending on your preparation - and there is a lot to cover!

Before

Firstly, I want to share what the room looked like over the years. I had tried to make this room work with what we had due to budget limitations but it still remained my most disliked room, which is hard to deal with when it is also one of the most used rooms - we have always liked to eat dinner at the table and I work in a little desk space in the corner.

The room is west facing, meaning that it doesn't get much light during the day and the hill also blocks out a lot of light. So it was a dark and dingy room filled with odd bits of furniture that we had accumulated through kind gifts or picked up for free / very cheaply on 2nd hand selling sites.

It is a good sized space but the space wasn't utilised properly.

The Plans

I decided that I needed to create bespoke storage to fill the wall without looking too cumbersome and overwhelming.

I generally prefer drawers over cupboards simply because it is easier to have quick access to your items rather than routing around in a cupboard. The only problem with this is that drawers are typically more expensive than cupboards simply because they have more parts to them.

This instantly meant that if we hired a carpenter then this would quickly become a very expensive project. So I looked into Ikea products to do my own hack and found that the 6 drawer malm units would fit the space perfectly and then we could fill the gaps with some trim.

I came up with a series of designs that would use the malm units and I decided that the Lack shelves would work if I then boxed everything in to make it look like a built-in unit.

It's always important to draw plans to scale - graph paper may help

I added some potential decorative details to some of the plans to see if hardware, light fixtures or moulding may help to create the look I wanted - these are details that don't have to be decided right away an as it happened we ended up without; once we had built the unit I realised that it might be a bit too much to add all the decorative details and I decided to let the unit speak for itself.

The details in all of the step by step instructions on how we built it are to come in my next post.

Paint Colours

Before: both rooms painted in Blackened Farrow & Ball

As the room is naturally very dark I wanted to brighten it by using paints with a yellow undertone to help bounce any light around the room. I also wanted it to look cohesive with the adjoining living room, which has a feature wall and the remaining 3 walls painted in a neutral.

I therefore knew that a neutral paint colour would work well for the walls and ceilings but I also wanted to have a bit of colour in here to brighten the room. So I decided to keep to a similar theme of green that I have flowing throughout my home and picked a yellow based green: Green 12 from Lick (in eggshell as this is best for painting furniture).

You can see in the before picture that this grey that looks very different in both rooms due to the lack of light in the dining room.

Once I selected my paint samples choices I painted the samples on card to hold up around the room (much better than directly on the wall) and held them against the furniture that was planned to stay in the room.

Every time I decorate a room I produce a mock up showing the potential colour choices against all of my existing furniture to confirm that it will all look right together. This is very basic but it helps you to visualise the whole room to see if it looks cohesive.

Following my usual process for selecting paint colours, I ended up with White 03 from Lick in Matt and Green 12 from Lick in Eggshell.

Once I had my plans in place and confirmed, it was time to order all of the products.

A full list of products and the process will be in my next blog post.