My Own IKEA Hack

Taking inspiration from Ikea Hackers, I decided to try my hand at a furniture mod. As I mentioned earlier, I'm finally taking the time to turn my home workshop into a multipurpose room. One thing I needed was storage. When you're trying to fit a lot of stuff into a space, you have to think up. So, I decided to go with bookcases to store my paint, tools, and books. The only problem is, I need the furniture in that room to be modular so that when I'm working on a big piece, I can easily move everything out of the way.

My solution, bookcases on wheels. I got a craigslist bargain on three Ikea Flarke bookcases, grabbed 2" casters from Home Depot, and pulled pieces of wood from my scrap collection.

Seeing as how it was pretty late by the time I got all my supplies together, I only had time to do one bookcase. Using wood screws, I screwed four pieces of wood into the corners of the bottom of the bookshelf. I then used the same screws to attach the wheels to the wood pieces. I stood the bookcase up and, magic, I had moveable shelving!

With that being my first attempt, there are changes I will make on the next two. For one, instead of using four pieces of wood, I'm going to try screwing the wheels directly into the bookshelves. This will allow me to put the wheels a little closer to the edges. If you're worried about your bookcase bowing in the middle, you can also attach a piece of wood that goes across the whole bottom of the bookcase rather than just in the corners as I did. This will give it added support.

I don't have pictures yet but they'll be up tonight. I'm psyched to finally be getting that room together so I can REALLY get to work! Next on my list of things to get are cubicle dividers like you'd see in an office. You can get tons of them for free on craigslist from companies going out of business. I plan to use these to seperate and conceal the work area.

Craigslist, here I come!