DIY IKEA Room Divider

We’ve looked at some designs from IKEA Hackers in the past, but we think this room divider is particularly useful and elegant. The 22 year old builder said he could only afford to buy a studio with his girlfriend. In order to create more rooms, he hacked a set of PAX sliding doors to fashion a new bedroom.

He mounted the frosted glass and aluminum doors ($300) to a custom wood frame. He finished off and painted the drywall to make it look like an integral part of the space.

This design is a bit more involved than some we’ve seen, and there’s not a ton of instruction, but if you’re handy, we suspect this wouldn’t be too tough to pull off. Materials would probably cost $500-600 including the doors. If you’re not handy, we’d guess a contractor would do this for $1-2K, depending on your area. While we question whether this guy’s apartment is a studio (who has a dining room in a studio?), $1500-2500 for an extra room is a great deal.

LifeHacker via IKEA Hackers

April 10, 2013

Transforming Furniture on the Cheap

While we love high end transforming furniture, we know a good deal of it falls way outside of our average reader’s furniture allowance for the year…or decade. Fear not. For those of us on more modest budgets, there are options–options greatly expanded in proportion to our facility with power tools.

A while back we looked at the DIY $275 Murphy bed. While we’re big fans of the Murphy bed design in general, it does have one drawback: The frontside must be clear before lowering. This requires that you either keep the coast clear–i.e. don’t put anything in front–or you have furniture that can easily be slid out of the way; this drawback negates some of the space saving benefits. A bed like the Resource Furniture Swing used in the LifeEdited Apartment, whose couch works in concert with the bed mechanism, better optimizes space owing to its utilization of the frontside. But again, starting around $9K, we know it’s not for everyone.

The good folks over at Treehugger turned us on to a DIY Murphy bed/desk called the UrbanDesk, ideal for people looking to save space and money. While it features a desk and some storage on its frontside rather than a couch, it still achieves the goal of milking as much space as possible in a very small footprint.

The project began as a Kickstarter project, but failed to meet its fundraising goal. Graham Phakos, the guy behind the project, said he’d post plans for anyone to build it. As yet, he has not, though we are going to petition him alongside Lloyd Alter at Treehugger to fulfill on his promise (we’ll keep you posted).

Beside a transforming bed, tables offer a great opportunity for space saving. We found this DIY convertible table on IKEA Hackers. Using an IKEA table top (they recommend a VIKA AMON, which appears to be discontinued, though there are several alternatives, from $10-100), a common trestle or keyboard stand (about $30 on Amazon) and a few other inexpensive items, you can create a table that converts from coffee to dining table in a pinch. Find full instructions on IKEA Hackers.

Whether you’re on a tight budget or a renter who doesn’t want to throw a ton of money into a temporary living situation or you just like making stuff, there are many options for making a transforming space that don’t break the bank.

January 23, 2013May 23, 2014

10 Quick and Cheap Life Hacks to De-Clutter and Simplify Your Life

These ten quick and cheap life hacks prove that simplifying life, saving space and de-cluttering is not sole domain downsizing your house, elaborate Italian furniture and hi tech apps. Sometimes all you need is some paperclips and lots of old toilet paper tubes. And who knew there was actually a way to fold a fitted sheet? Find another 90 suggestions at Muxedo Task.

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Via Twisted Sifter

September 10, 2012May 23, 2014

Turn Your Power-Drill Into Multi-Purpose Kitchen Tool

This video from LifeHacker shows what one power-drill and a bit of imagination can do, turning your drill into a blender, beater, scrubber, pepper grinder and Parmesan shredder–all with very minimal modifications. We imagine there are other culinary uses for a power-drill like a handheld blender, food processor or frother.

What this exercise shows is that items we thought were only good for a few purposes–e.g. boring holes, tightening/loosening bolts–can do many.

Granted, using a power-drill this way necessitates keeping it a bit cleaner than you might otherwise (a plastic bag over the drill would probably suffice), but keeping your tools clean is not a bad idea anyway, and getting rid of several single-purpose kitchen tools saves space and money.

Do you have any similar hacks–or MacGyver tips as LifeHacker refers to them? Let us know what they are via email (howdy at lifeedited dot com) or in our comment section.

May 14, 2012May 30, 2013

Build Your Own Murphy Bed for $275

One of the bigger challenges to starting your edited life is reasonably priced transforming furniture. While we believe the high quality and versatile Resource Furniture used in the first LifeEdited apartment is worth every penny, many of their large pieces are several thousand dollars, putting it outside the price range for many people.

Perhaps no piece of furniture is more important to an edited home than a transforming bed. Beds are huge space hogs, whose utility is only relevant when we’re unconscious. A queen sized bed is about 35 sq feet; why wouldn’t you want to use that space for your 16 waking hours?

A “product” called the Moddi Murphy Bed is the least expensive entry point we’ve found for getting your bed out of the way. The site sells plans for $8, which instruct you how to take easy to find IKEA furniture and other hardware to make a twin or full sized murphy bed for $275 (most pre-builts start around $1500). The finished product–which can be modified depending on which IKEA finishes you purchase–looks pretty great too.

One of the aims of LifeEdited is providing the resources to make simpler, happier lives, no matter your budget. If you know of any other low-cost transforming furniture or hacks, please let us know.

via IKEAhackers

image from Apartment Therapy