A set of built-in bookshelves can transform any plain old room into a dreamy library or cozy den. They look great, fit the dimensions of your space like a glove, and are perfectly customized to your exact tastes. Here's the downside, though: quality built-in bookshelves are significantly more expensive to install than just picking up a few bookshelves from a furniture store.
But decor expert Preston Konrad managed to get the best of both worlds when renovating his NYC home goods store. He still ended up getting the custom-built in shelves of his dreams, but he saved a ton of money by kicking off the renovation process with a trip to IKEA.
This is the ultimate ikea hack! Im not doing this renovation myself bc i dont have time this week but easily could have…will post a full before and after of the makeover soon!
Once again, IKEA's effortlessly customizable furniture comes in the clutch! As a interior design professional, @prestonkonrad knew that having custom shelving designed and built from scratch would eat through a ton of money, but he still wanted that clean, custom-built-in look in his store. Instead, he saved a lot of time and cash by grabbing a few units of IKEA's popular BILLY bookshelf and building around them.
Specifically, Preston appears to be using the BILLY/OXBERG bookcase with doors in white. At 79.5" tall and 31.5" wide with nearly a foot of depth, this bookshelf offers a sizable, ample mix of open and closed storage, and all for only $119 per unit!
After the five BILLY units were assembled, transforming them into custom built-ins was easy (at least easier than it would have been building them from scratch). As Preston explained, the assembled shelves had spacers built in between them and then were slightly lifted off of the floor with a plywood base. The bookshelves then got beautifully "tricked out" with the addition of some fancy crown molding that gave them a lovely "pop" of visual appeal. All that was left to do was paint them to match the store's color palette (Preston wouldn't say what color he was going with, but promised a future update with the finished product).
For years, DIYers have been transforming BILLY bookcases into professional-looking custom built-ins with a few relatively simple adjustments like the ones shown here. Many of Preston's followers even claimed to have tried the same hack themselves, successfully renovating their dens and walk-in closets for a fraction of the cost they would have spent on custom-made built-in furniture . Some of them gussied up their IKEA "built-ins" even more by adding picture downlights or wallpaper on the inside.
It's always a good sign when a popular (and relatively cost-effective) IKEA customization hack is so tried-and-tested that even design professionals like Preston use it for their businesses! While Preston acknowledges that the process of transforming the IKEA bookshelves into built-ins was still a laborious one, it nevertheless saved him "tons on custom millwork." Mght save you a chunk of change on your next home renovation project, too!
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