Thank you all for such lovely lovely comments on our new playroom. We are still really loving the space and I’m also enjoying that I can close the door to pretend the mess is not there if need be. But honestly even though the room gets trashed multiple times per day, I have found that Noah is more inclined to tidy up properly because he is also proud of the space and likes it when he can see it’s neat and tidy. :o}
Today I am sharing with you how we did our Ikea hacked desk. We saw this done on the Ikea Hacker blog and I LOVED the idea of putting a table top onto the Expedit.
We already had the 2×4 Ikea Expedit and I really wanted a desk in there, so this was really perfect.
All we had to buy for this project was the Vika Amon desk at $59 {from Ikea}, 2x $8 balustrade posts {from bunnings}, a plank of wood that was 9cm wide and about 2 cm thick that we cut to size and a few little metal brackets and screws.
In the original hack brackets were only placed on the front of the unit when attaching the table top to the Expedit. Knowing my kiddos and how they lean on the edge of the table, this wasn’t going to be safe or stable enough so we put brackets on the front and the back to secure the table top to the Expedit. It also really does need to have the legs, without them this is too unstable.
Here is a photo of the brackets used on the front of the unit. We used 3 on the front, left, right and centre.
To attach the table top to the expedit at the back, my hubby bent the same brackets used at the front so that they were relatively ‘flat’. We used one bracket on each side of the back. {btw the table will hang over by about .5cm on each side as you can see in this photo}. We felt it really needed this extra attachment as attaching just at the front meant the back of the table top would life up if you put any weight on the front of the table. Of course the addition of the legs would help solve that, but since this was for our kids to use we felt it’s better to be safe than sorry.
This was before we got the legs on. I wouldn’t let the kids play in here unsupervised while the legs weren’t on yet because as I said, it was pretty unstable like this. One tug on the edge and it would have been quite easy for the whole thing to tip over.
Hubby screwed the balustrade post to the block of wood from the top. And then screwed the block + balustrade to underneath the Vika Amon desk top. {Ahem, we need another coat of paint!} NB: You could also use the height adjustable legs from IKEA – they would probably give you a better finish – when we did this, they were out of stock.
The end result is an awesome large desk surface with heaps of useful storage underneath. The only problem is that it’s higher than your average table. We bought the Ikea Ingolf Junior chairs to help with height, and they are still a tad short but will be great in the long run! :o}
![a little delightful](https://i2.wp.com/i88.photobucket.com/albums/k189/bianca384/sig2.jpg)
Bianca this is genius! I’m going to have to bookmark this page for future use in my eldest son’s bedroom.
This is brilliant and so versatile for any creative space 🙂
I will be promptly stealing this idea – love it.