Ikea Hack: Ivar Wardrobe

This is a project we're very proud of. It's still a work in progress, but it's looking pretty damn good if you ask me.

Behold, the closet space before we did anything to it.

Yes, that's a pink skeleton. No, it's not a glow-in-the-dark pink skeleton. I checked. I found it on top of the dryer. As can be seen in the photo, I promptly sent my best detective to investigate. She suspected it to be part of a Halloween decor, which climbed all the way up there just because high places are awesome.

The walls in the walk-in wardrobe were white even though the walls in the adjoining bedroom were pale blue. I don't know why the previous owner insisted on squeezing the entire color spectrum into this tiny apartment.

We painted the bedroom and the wardrobe Benjamin Moore Kendall Charcoal to improve the "flow" between the two rooms. Then we placed an Ikea Malm dresser smack dab in the middle of the long wall.

Yep. Bad decision. It was the wrong size for the space. Good thing it fit in the small corner beside the stacked washer and dryer, so it will stay there until we figure out what to do with that corner.

Meanwhile, we sorely needed hanging space. We hunted down some Ikea Ivar parts on Craigslist and found a deal. It was dirt cheap at $55 (delivered!) and we got literally a big heap of it. It would easily cost hundreds of dollars new at Ikea. But there was a catch. They were painted blue, had doodles on them and were just an unintelligible  mess.

This is only about half of what we got!

So we chose the Ivar parts we wanted to use, then got a Behr paint from Home Depot in a white color similar to the one on our Ikea Malm dresser. After sanding, primer-ing and painting the Ivar parts, we started assembling our wardrobe tower. This went in the middle of the long wall in the closet.

It wasn't that easy to assemble, though. This was where we started wishing that we bought a brand new Ikea Ivar set like normal people. But since the two frames alone would have cost us $50 new, we shut our mouths and got to work.

First, the drawers wouldn't slide in. I think the previous owner left them outside and they expanded.

After some vigorous sanding sessions, these drawers finally slid into place.

And the hardware for holding the drawer unit up above the floor was missing. We went to Ikea to look for it, but they couldn't give us the hardware without a receipt, which of course we didn't have.

So we got ourselves some metal L-plates and screwed the drawer unit into place. We used eight brackets, one for each corner of the drawer unit that met the frame. You can see one of those brackets in action below.

We then prepared the shelves that we wanted to attach out Ikea Ivar tower. We wanted to use a mixture of Ivar shelves and our own custom shelves. The Ivar shelves obviously would only fit the main middle tower. So we had to make our own shelves to span the length of the top of the entire unit and the two spaces on either side of the main tower at a lower level. It's sounds complicated, but it's really quite simple. Read on and you'll see what I mean.

We got some pine planks and cut them to size. Because we wanted a long piece at the top and couldn't find a plank that size, we used two pieces and held them together with metal plates.

Then we painted the pine planks the same white color as the Ikea Ivar to make them blend together.

Same white color as the cat?

After that, we went about installing rods for our clothes hangers. Because the set-up is a little difficult to explain, here's a picture to show you how we did it.

We first screwed metal L-plates into the wall studs at the height we wanted. Then we placed a length of 1.5" by 1.5" wood  onto the L-plates and screwed the wood into place. We attached a shelf to the piece of wood and also to the Ikea Ivar tower. We placed a U-hook near the each of the two ends of the shelf and threaded a length of wood dowel between the two U-hooks.

See? You would never understand how it's set up just by reading my explanation. Here's a bigger picture.

We matched the heights of the shelves with the rungs on the Ikea Ivar frames so those rungs could help keep the shelves in place. We also used L-plates to attach the shelves to the Ivar frames for more strength.

After all is said and done, we're really happy with the end result.

 

That's my arm in the bottom left corner — tight space!

What I was most excited about was getting all my bags out of the moving boxes and having them on display.

And I love that we can change the heights of the Ikea Ivar shelves. We can switch the things we put on each shelf and adjust the heights accordingly. We have summer hats out now, but we'll be able to place winter stuff there later and still have shelves that are just the right height.

I also love how tall the whole thing is; it almost reaches the ceiling.

 

Adding a rug made the room feel more finished. That's an Ikea Farum rug, by the way. We bought it half price at $29.99. Boy, this post makes us seem uber cheap.

All in all, this project cost us a little over $150. We spent $55 on the Ikea Ivar, about $60 on the pine planks, about $30 on paint (which we still have plenty of and will use on other things) and about $20 on the wood dowels, supporting wood pieces and hardware.

That's not too shabby, considering the unit is really big and all made of solid wood. Similarly sized melamine models would easily cost five times that. And did I mention this was the first time we tried our hands on carpentry? We're patting ourselves on the back. I mean, it used to look like this:

And now it looks like this:

That's something. But I said the room isn't quite done yet and that's because there's still plenty of things I want to do.

I want to add some lights on top of the unit because the lower shelves are really dark. The space between the top shelf and the ceiling is just the right size for that. I also want to add some drapes to separate the bedroom and the wardrobe, and also to cover the washer and the dryer. That Ikea Malm dresser is also too small for the other corner of the wardrobe. And what's a closet without a mirror?