IKEA Hack?

Hello Loyal Viewers...I am shocked and yet not totally surprised that it has been a year since I blogged...well, just about. I guess I should add it to the list of things to improve on in 2015. Starting...now.

So, I wouldn't say that I LOVE IKEA, but I do appreciate it. When I first moved into my own place it was my best friend to furnish my living room and provide home from my clothing. It was a great and inexpensive way to get a clean look in my new home and even I can put the furniture together. Oh, I wish I had pictures of the TV stand that I put together...you would all be so proud. 

Anywho, a couple pieces from that first place (to my surprise) have survived a few moves and served me well. This week, as we were packing away Christmas and putting away the tree, we decided to turn one of these faithful pieces of furniture into kitchen storage so that we will no longer have to search all over the apartment for hidden kitchen appliances, bake-ware, stemware, etc (first go to place to look was always under the guest bed).

So, we headed to IKEA to see what we could find. Here are some pictures from the project, if people want to know the details, let me know. I will say that the bookshelf is from a line (Besta Vara) that I believe they are discontinuing, which is unfortunate because it is so versatile.  

Here is the original bookshelf in all of it's glory. Well, actually this is its twin because I forgot to take the before picture of the one that we transformed, but you get the idea. :)

The during...

The after!!!!

A rack to hold cookbooks, some stemware, pots/pans/lids, bake-ware, small kitchen appliances and anything else that might come to mind.

We used the Grundtal Series for the hooks and rods.

Two hanging rods with hooks to hang pans and a utensil box for extra utensils. 

A drawer for lids and splatter guards. 

Lower storage for Kitchen Aid Mixer, Crockpot, and other bake-ware

Some things to note...

1) IKEA does not provide the screws to drill in the hanging rods, we (and by we, I mean Dan) used sheet metal screws (3/4 inch).
2) We purchased the stemware racks at Home Depot, because the ones at IKEA did not fit our glasses (the bases were too wide).  There are also a lot of options online.

I am so thankful to have Dan and all of his tools to be able to help our ideas come to life. Not to say that I couldn't have done this, but it definitely wouldn't have come out so nice and it might have fallen apart over night...the perks of being with an engineer and having a partner in crime. 

Happy New Years!!!