I think I may officially be falling in love with Ikea Hacking. And it all started with my horribly ill-behaved cat. Okay, I’ve always loved the website, but I’d never done it until this week.
I got a text message that the printer was broken. The USB port smashed in when it fell to the ground. It fell to the ground because Dragon tried to jump into the closet (usually one of his favorite places to snuggle) that had recently been filled with CRAP. And on top of that pile of crap was the printer. The USB thing wasn’t really a huge deal since the printer also works with bluetooth.
Until Draggy decided the cord looked like an excellent chew toy. And he chewed completely through it. Thankfully it wasn’t plugged in at the time. Still, there was much yelling, and the end result was a cat being locked up–first in his carrier, then in the bathroom–for almost 24 hours. We needed to cat proof all the cords before The Hippy would trust him. And, frankly, neither of us wanted to come home to the smoldering remains of our house. He’d always been a bit of a cord chewer, but it had apparently gotten worse recently.
How does this relate to Ikea Hacking? Well, the litter box used to live in the basement. The basement is where a million and one cords live. A million and one cords that would be a huge pain in the ass to cover with flex tubing. So the litter box came upstairs. Into the living room. Which is, in a word, lame. No one wants to look at cat waste.
So I built this:
Man, that sunshine washed everything out. Have I mentioned I hate cameras? My photographer boyfriend is willing to teach everyone but me, and I can’t use photoshop to save my life, so this is what we get. Anyway…. I am not terribly fond of the curtain–it’s too frilly–but it covers everything for now. The next curtain will have far fewer gathers. It’ll be easier to make too. Win, win!
I used Decor Velcro which is sticky on the hook side and sew-on on the loop side. The curtains were gathered using the ol’ two row basting method (opted against gathering tape because of bulk, and opted against the ruffler foot because, well, it broke). The fabric is the same cross-hatched suiting fabric I used for the living room curtains (you can see in the background), just blue and not red.
Now for the nitty-gritty of the actual hack. I used two Lack tables, L-brackets, and super strong glue.
I measured 6″ from the original holes on one side of the table and drilled. I cannot stress enough how important it is to drill slowly. Painfully slowly.
So then I measured new holes on the OTHER table because this one had to be delegated to the bottom. Once the legs are screwed on (I recommend ignoring their “instructions” and putting the screws in the legs first, then the tables. Your hands will thank you.), using a healthy amount of glue on the legs with the new holes, as there is no support away from the corners, attach the tables together with L-Brackets.
I again used liberal amount of glue. Maybe too liberal. It’s not exactly pretty, but it’s also covered by the curtains. Oh well.
(Cat jail and Wii Fit Board used to add weight to press glue down)
Off-setting the top table by 6″ gives rear-entry clearance for the cat while keeping the tabletop flush against the wall. This way, anything I chose to keep on top of the table is unlikely to fall to a cat-littery death.
It’s a bit taller than I’d like, so I may pry the top half off and saw down the legs at some point, but for now it serves its purpose: Hiding the cat bathroom and all its supplies.
Secrets of a Wannabe Housewife 