Been awhile since my last post, to say my personal life has been very up and down over the past 2 years would be an understatement. However I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the time as well as facing and overcome many challenges. I hope to be posting more projects back to my blog over the coming months. First up an IVAR shelf I assembled and customized. Full credit to Ikea Hackers for the side bar dowel idea.
I’m very happy with how the shelves have turned out and it was certainly worth the extra effort to stain and varnish the unit and make a few modifications.
First up I settled on an approximate shelf spacing of 30cm (12inchs). On the 124cm tall sides this equated to needing five shelves and one cross brace. When I selected my shelves I carefully picked out shelves that had no joins or filled knots so they would look as nice as possible when finished. I sanded the entire frame down using 180 followed by 280 grit sand paper. Unfortunately I should have hit the side bars harder as there are still some electric plane marks from the original manufacturing process visible.
My finished IVAR compared to the stock version
I screwed and glued some thin pine timber to the back edge of four of the shelves (not the top shelf) to create a lip at the back of each shelf. This should prevent items from being pushed off the back of the shelf and sliding down behind the unit. Very annoying when it comes time to fish the items that have fallen down behind the shelf back out.
I followed the example on the Ikea Hackers page and inserted dowels down each side. This really helped finish off the shelf unit and will prevent items from toppling or being pushed off the shelves sideways.
I finished the whole unit using Cabots waterbased cabothane, the sides used the stain and varnish in one product tinted to Suburbia. I chose Suburbia as I wanted a lighter brown rather than a red brown. The Stain and Varnish product took a little getting used to, best tip I can say is apply it in very thin coats with not much product on your brush.
Assembly was very easy with the shelves popping into place and then screw the back metal brace in place which firms the whole unit up. I’m very happy with how the shelves look and plan to make a second taller set in the near future. They now go to there permanent home for now in a cupboard for food and other item storage. The additional stain, varnish and timber came to about an extra $60 AUD on top of the shelf costs.
Woodworking gives me something useful to do when I’m feeling puny and it takes my mind off my troubles. ~ Gary McCarthy
Sirrob01 