paul from the uk has been hacking ikea furniture for years to use in his music studios. the rast bedside table makes a snug rack for music machines.

"over the years i've used their tables recut to make groovy desking, their tv stands to make drum machine plinths, but the main use i have at the mo is that every desktop rack unit i use is made from the bog-standard £9 ikea rast bedside table!

i usually drop the lower shelf a little just to fit more rack units in, but that's pretty easy. a couple of strips of racking later and they just fit a 19" rack module perfectly!"

click to see more photos of paul's music studio.

i've featured a few laptop desk and stands before. haymon adds this neat idea to the list.

"i bought slinga brackets for $9 each, a wooden bar for $2 and screwed them together as a stand for my macbook.
the big advantage is that you can customize it exactly to the size of your laptop."

update! (13/2/08) link to daniel's page updated.


the ikea hol storage cube is turning out to be a firm favourite when it comes to building computers into furniture. here's one from daniel.

more pictures of daniel's hol computer.

other hol hacks:
> barbex's smart tv recorder
> hide a sub woofer in this hol

got one too? show us your version.
> andi's

> patrik's

a charging station that lifts all the wires and cables off the floor and displays all your gadgets at the same time. a neat idea!

hans of sweden needed a new place for his phone and all sorts of rechargeable stuff. the old solution gathered a lot of dust, was low and took up a lot of floor-estate in his hallway.

"after going thru most parts of the ikea catalogue i finaly found a solution. it's a billy cd-shelf insert for its bookcases, it's a discontinued product but i managed to get one. since it's meant to be inserted into a bookshelf all edges are raw so i painted them in the same color as the wall.


i also drilled out some bricks out of a piece of wood so that i could get a space between the shelf and the wall - very useful for hiding cables, the bricks are also painted in the same color as the wall. i'm very pleased with the result. i might even add lights to the back of it to really make it hover."

adam's benjamin laptop desk
adam from boston sends me this cheap but functional laptop desk, hacked from ikea's benjamin stool.

"i've been looking for a laptop desk so that my poor mac won't overheat in the summer time. i was appalled to find that the two most common returns to a search were like... REALLY expensive.

this absurdly simple hack was done using the $19 benjamin stool and a $6 coping saw. you could make it pretty snappy by taping off the edges and spray painting the inside a really bright color. you could also make a shallower tray if you had access to a table-saw with a plywood blade on it."

lazymonster's grundtal laptop stand
this looks precarious but lazymonster has tested it for months and says it has served its purpose well besides displaying the laptop like a piece of art.


it's put together from an old ikea grundtal paper towel holder (can't find the link on ikea website) and some plexiglass sheet. and is made to be used with a tablet and keyboard, so he doesn't really "touch" the laptop. so, no, you can't type away merrily on this.

thanks! nigel, kevin, ian [via lifehacker]

view lazymonster laptop stand photo set

gino's variera macbook stand
another cheap laptop desk option. gino from the netherlands used the ikea variera kitchen shelf (can't find the link on ikea website) which fits his MacBook to a T.

"since the shelf itself is perforated, it helps to cool the bottom of those overheating notebooks. i ended up mounting the shelf upside down on its legs (pix below does not show this as it is a composite picture using the original variera). this prevents the notebook from falling off the shelf should you push against it from the front or the back."

creaneo84's funky monitor stand
breaking slightly from the theme but i couldn't resist slipping in creaneo84's awesome monitor stand that hides ugly cords too. also from a hacked benjamin stool. the front red panel is the deal maker.

thanks, michelle, abby, wendy [via apartment therapy home tech]

max's solution to the many battery chargers we have in our life.

"put all your battery chargers and power adapters in an ikea snack box - hidden and in a nice order.


put the multiple socket outlet in the first box and plug in the chargers. the main power plug can leave the box from the side handle. in the second box, make holes to allow the cables and plug connectors to stick out and write / draw what the plug is for.

just pile the two boxes one over the other. in the top one you can put the items to charge (cameras, cellular phones, even a laptop fits!), the bottom one is hiding and keeping in order all the cables."

too many wires and cables snaking on and around your table? niclas from germany gives us a cable box idea to hide them all.

"i used two björken bathroom wall cabinets and mounted them together. the two björkens sit on my desktop and all cables and electrical wires are inside.

as the connecting bottom and top panels were removed the doors will not close properly, so i put in four pins which were included to hold the glass panes and rested the two glass panes over the pins. now the door closes perfectly and you can put more heavy things like an monitor on the cable box.


i put in two multiple sockets to connect all electrical stuff like monitors, lamps, printer, mobile phone charger and notebook charger. in it is also an active usb hub to connect two external hard drives (which are also placed in the björken), an usb web cam, my ipod adapter cable, my printer etc. soon i will build in a 'roll-on usb cable' (pix below, left) so i only have to pull a cable out of the björken to attach to my computer. and when i pull it out of my notebook the cable will automatically roll up.


i also cut a hole on the top side of the cabinet, the accommodate speaker and network cables."

was browsing flickr i found this really cool ikea hack by suh-weet! it's an ibook stand made from an ikea cd stand (i can't locate the product on the ikea website.)

anyways, here's how it's done.


just turn the cd rack upside down. then use an old book to fill out the hollow space.


paste a non-slip material (which comes together with rack) to form a base for the ibook to sit on.


and voila! your ibook hangs cool. click here for flickr pictures.

i'm always impressed with the creativity of ikea hackers. a few weeks back, timtom wrote me and told me of his home filled with ikea stuff and hacks. of course, that got me hooked instantly, and I pestered gently coaxed him till he sent me 3 hacks and some pretty pictures. this is the first - a home cinema screen made from tupplur blinds.


i was too lazy to do this, but maybe i will upgrade my setup with some buckets of paint. the tricky part is to apply the correct quantity of paint so your blind can still be rolled up without messing your paint job. again, scout the 'net for directions' such as this one."

tupplur blinds, we think, are no longer in production. sigh ... some times you just wonder why ikea goes and kill a good thing. you can still use the same idea with plain white fabric or other blinds like the iris may work.

the trio
> #2: movable dvd player storage
> #3: coming soon

tags: ikea, tupplur, projector screen, timtom

holding your psp for hours on end is a drag. and tired hands fuels invention. ck [via make] posts a cool diy psp stand. his prototype was a crappy cardboard version but since then, he has engineered it to this alien form below.

ck writes, "well, I attached it to what used to be a cheap ikea desk lamp and ran the charger cord through the thing, so now I have a fully positional desk stand for hands free movie viewing on my PSP." link.

other hacks you may be interested in:
> zieak's wierd cam creature
> jwrl's hip mobile music console

tags: ikea, psp, lamp

i had second thoughts about posting this hack, because, well, it's ugly. but then, i thought perhaps some other hacker out there may have a better solution to this piece of conversation stopper. isn't there a way to hide those horrid wads of sponge?

in case you're still wondering "what the ... ?", they are deflector/absorbing panels - made from ikea shelves. the hacker writes: "i'm thinking of a way to make them look a bit more pro, but the idea works acoustically." link.

other audio visual hacks:
> hip ikea music machine
> make an audio cabinet from lack tables
> fixing gaje speaker stands
> make your own cam creature

tags: ikea, audio, deflectors