Scavenger Chic

Billy Bookcase IKEA Hack, Desk

• By Joan
• March 4, 2021
• 6 Comments

Billy Bookcase IKEA Hack, Children’s playroom

A couple of weeks ago, I’m sitting in the basement, watching a movie with my husband, when I look up and see the world’s worst taping job on my ceiling.  I’m talking about the spackle tape that covers the seams on drywall and then is covered with the spackle.  

Normally the floodlights illuminate the room downward, but since we were watching a movie we just had a lamp on.  The uplight from the lamp highlighted how truly awful the seam was.  I like to think that I’m a pretty good judge of the spackle quality because it was me that did all the mudding in the first place.  The tape stuck out like a sore thumb.  It was probably only a 4 foot section, but it was pretty bad. 

We must have completed the basement about 25 years ago and you would think that I would have been bothered by it before.

Yes, I’ve seen it and no I didn’t care.

But now the time was right. When the weather warms up I would rather be outside and when we’re out of quarantine I would rather be any place other than painting my basement.  Might as well have something to show for being locked up and the entire basement was past due for a paint job.

The problem with painting a ceiling is you really should do the walls and trim as well especially when you don’t have a match for your ceiling color.

So, by the time you’re reading this, I’ve finished repairing the ceiling, painted the ceiling, and have overlapped onto the walls.  That messy job above was actually on purpose so I could make sure I got the ceiling paint into the corners and now I can make a clean paint line with the wall color.

So I’m painting and painting and coming up with a few projects I’d like to do along the way, one of which is this desk space that was created for the kids at least 15 years ago if not more.  This was the play area in my basement.  We used to have a bunch of the colored milk crates stacked at one end of the room with toys. One day I got tired of the crates and changed over to this bookcase and desk combination.  The idea was to have tons of storage and a space that could grow with the kids.  

I still like the functionality of the space but I want to tweak the area in order to make it a bit more Scavenger Chicy.  Before I change it up, I wanted to show you the basic construction because it may give you ideas of what you can do with your own space.

What this is is my IKEA hack consisting of four Billy bookcases placed back to back with a sheet of plywood in between used as a craft desk.  Billy bookcases have been sold at IKEA since 1979.  They currently come in white, black/brown and birch.  This gray color is no longer available.

I’ve been using this area as my office for the past month ever since my husband kicked me out of our office so he could work there.  In reality, I volunteered because he needs to have a door that closes for his endless Zoom calls and he actually has a real job.  After 6 months he had grown tired of the makeshift office we had set up for him in a spare bedroom.

This space works perfectly fine for me and it is right around the corner from the workshop.

When we installed the Billy bookcases we had to chop about an inch off their length so they could fit beneath the bulkhead that holds the ductwork.

The inside sections of the bookcases store all kinds of paper and kids art supplies. 

Each container is labeled so that the kids and I could figure out what was inside without opening every one of the boxes.

These green and white containers were also from IKEA but they have been discontinued.  They hold stencils, stamps, stickers, construction paper, beads, glitter, sequins, scissors, glue…you get the idea.  As the kids got older their art supplies got replaced by my art supplies.  Bottles of Elmers glue and glue sticks have now turned into ModPodge and wood glue.  Construction paper  is now scrapbook paper.  Kid safety scissors are now fabric and specialty scissors.

I haven’t taken over all the containers yet and most are still child friendly.

The outside shelves still hold kids toys even though my youngest is now 22.  It’s now the grandkids that come over and love to explore.  Matchbox cars, blocks, legos, (Mr.) Potato Head,  little people, beanie babies, dinosaurs, puppets…I have it all.

I just found out recently that they are not actually legos but Lego bricks.  Who knew? I’ve been saying it wrong for years and now Mr. Potato Head is just Potato Head,  I’m pretty sure we had both Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head back in the day.  And what I am totally sure of is that I will continue to call both of these toys by their wrong names.

The desk is a one inch piece of plywood 5′ 10″ x 2′ 6″, painted the color of the shelves.

A piece of molding hides the front edge of the plywood.

The desk is attached to the bookshelf with 8 small brackets.

It may be a few weeks, but the next time you see this kids desk area it will have undergone a transformation (hopefully). I’m ready to start tweaking. 

I can’t wait to get started, but first I have a lot more painting to do.

Until next time, stay safe, stay inspired.

Update:

Finally finished .  Here is your sneak peek. Make sure you click on the link to see all the changes.

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