IKEA HACK (Expedit Shelving)

Our poor basement has been undergoing a serious case of neglect.  It's where things go to die.. literally.

For the most part, me and Shane live upstairs.  With the exception of laundry and working in the art studio, our basement isn't a place we use much.  Even the dog avoids it.  This has me convinced that we could live in one of those 10 x 12 homes in the middle of no-where.  Dream big small.  Until that day comes, if at all, we are continuing to work with the space we have, and apply inventive ways to make it better.

Take the Expedit shelving unit for example:

Certainly something that can be found in any 20-65 year old's home.  You may not believe me if I told you, but I have seen an organized Expedit shelving unit before, in the flesh.  Honest.  Our shelving unit has housed everything from books to game systems, to platters and dishes, none of which looked organized.  Being a bit OCD, this bothered me, and because of it, our shelving unit had almost got the ax a few times, however, for sentimental reasons (first piece of Ikea furniture with the Hubster) and functionality, it stuck around.

Before coming to the realization that it would be cost effective to just re-vamp the dang thing, I was checking out media cabinets at West Elm, Crate and Barrel, and CB2, you know, the kind-of-affordable, grown-up furniture options.  However, the price tag for these consoles were tough to swallow.  If there wasn't a million things I wanted to tackle with our home improvement budget, I'd welcome these handsome storage units into our piece of split, anytime.  All of them.

Credit: West Elm

Credit: West Elm

Credit: Crate and Barrel

Credit: CB2

Now that countless hours of wishing and pondering were well spent, I finally had an idea for our Expedit shelf.  The one thing that all of these media storage units had in common was how random and unique they were, from the wood grain to the mixed materials.  I also wanted our shelf to function well for it's intended purpose (i.e: video game station). You could guess that this piece of furniture is for the husband, and you would be correct, however, I too like to dabble in some SNES action.  

The first step was removing the metal legs (not pictured) and replacing them with casters.  The purpose of this would be to move the unit with ease (untangling cords in the back, etc.)

After some measuring, I went and purchased 2x3's to build two frames and secured the corners with L-brackets.

Next, I went wood diving in and outside of our home, grabbing any leftover wood that I could salvage for this project.  

Variety is good in my eyes.  This unit is not something that I wanted to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination.  I wanted it to be as off-beat as possible.  Winning.

I cut the wood down to size and secured the panels to the frame using a nail gun.  Once the wood was secure, I flipped it over and added a set of hinges.

One door complete, on to the next.  Because my hinges created gaps on the side of the Expedit shelving unit, I had to cut off about an inch of wood from my other frame.  If you come across a issue such as this, just go with the flow. **Tip: Make one door first before starting on the other.  Ikea measurements are a little off, so adjust your plan accordingly.

The doors are slightly different widths, but that is okay with me.  Off beat, remember?  I ended up using a lot of cedar and premium wood in this piece.  Really anything with a pretty wood grain on it.  I also added some pulls from Anthropologie I had laying around the house.  All that is left is for the man of the house to set up his vid systems.

There you have it, my "Ikea Hack" for the Expedit Shelving Unit.  Bonus, the cedar smells amazing.  For this project, I didn't use any stains or poly.  I'm all about natural wood in it's natural state... er, in this case, fixed on our media storage unit.  Super happy with the outcome.  I've already been downstairs fifteen separate times enjoying it's company.  Flawless Victory.