All original work © Jason W. Wong. Please ask for permission to reproduce any work.

All original work © Jason W. Wong. Please ask for permission to reproduce any work.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Take these broken wings...

This new German start-up called New Swedish Design wanted to feature one of my old Ikea hacks on their site and of course I told them "go for it!" I also reminded them that I did another easy graphic hack for the same client.

The attention reminded me that I had been contemplating another easy Ikea hack to replace this sad bathroom cabinet we've had since we originally moved into our place 10 years ago:

     


As you can see, it wasn't much to begin with. And it got water damaged from a leaky pipe recently. It was waterlogged, falling apart, and ready to be replaced.

What better way to replace it than with the easiest Ikea hack ever, the Valje wall cabinet with four contrasting Stubbarp legs in a dark stain?

I was actually impressed by the Valje--it had a really sophisticated white oak veneer and mitered corners (!) so it could look good from any angle. Yes, it's meant to be a wall cabinet, but I needed something to go under our sink.

First I measured and traced out the position of the legs on the underside of the cabinet.


"X" marks the spot (where I was going to drill!)


Next, I marked out the depth of the screw-in legs on my drill--I didn't want to go too far into the cabinet and have the bolts sticking out.


After drilling, I screwed in the legs, making sure to leave a little wiggle room (and again, making sure I didn't force them through the veneer inside.) Using a couple of washers helped me get the right spacing.


Et voila! A new undersink cabinet for all our bathroom stuff! Finally--it only took me 10 years (and about 30 minutes for the assembly and hack ;-)