House Project: Ikea In the Philippines + Ikea Kallax 1x4 Hack
I would like to introduce this new blog post series called the "House Project". House project will be series of blog entries here at TATS Lifestyle, showing you how I will design and improve our home little by little, every time we have an extra budget to make our house more beautiful. Ideally, everyone would prefer their houses to look nice and beautiful in one sitting by designing everything at once. However we are really on a tight budget, especially now that my boyfriend and I already have baby Tali in our lives. And so, I feel really lucky every time we get to have extra money to buy some good furniture and extra little things for DIY.
You are probably wondering, "Ikea in the Philippines? Really??". Yes! Really!! Well, not really. People will go craaazzyy if Ikea was in the Philippines. A friend introduced to me this furniture store located in Ortigas Ext., near Greenhills called Furniture Source Philippines, I don't know the details but as far as I know, they are the official distributor of Ikea here in the Philippines. Click the link and visit their store for more details.
BEFORE:
AFTER:
I already showed you from a previous blog post how I did my gallery wall. As you can see, the before photo of our living room is so bare and since we only live in a condominium unit we need extra, extra storage for our stuff and for the growing number of Tali's toys. I bought two kinds of shelves from Ikea. One that is a floor to ceiling shelves called the Billy Bookcase, and another one that is shorter called Kallax Shelving Unit. I've seen so many Ikea hacks online and I am so amazed on how creative people are! It's my dream to have a perfect window bench, a place by the window where you can sit comfortably while reading a magazine. If you like the idea of having your own window bench at home, keep reading and I will teach you how to DIY a window bench just by using Kallax 1x4 Shelving Unit from Ikea.
Things you will need:
Kallax 1x4 Shelving Unit
Fabric of your choice
MDF or Plywood
Foam
Stapler for Upholstery
Scissors
Cutter
Step 1:
Measure the plywood according to the depth and width of the Kallax. After that, simply measure the foam following the same depth and width of the plywood. Lastly, measure your fabric. Make sure that it is long enough to go around the plywood to cover the foam completely.
photo credit: mommyvignettes.blogspot.com
Step 2:
Start cutting. You can use an electric cutter just like the one in the picture, or you can simply use the regular cutter and scissors that you have at home.
photo credit: mommyvignettes.blogspot.com
Step 3:
Place the foam on top of the plywood and prepare your fabric for wrapping. Make sure to cover the foam completely with fabric and staple the ends of the fabric onto the plywood.
photo credit: blog.krysmelo.com
BEFORE:
photo credit: ikea.com
AFTER:
I didn't get a chance to take my own photos during the process because I wasn't around when my boyfriend did this for me. Good thing that he's very good with instructions, so he really did a great job pulling this off!! Oh and if you noticed, we also started decorating for christmas! We have a mini christmas tree on our side table!! The tree and everything on it is really cheap from divisoria!
What do you think of our living room make over? Share me your thoughts in the comment section below!
