This Boring Bedroom Wall Transforms with an IKEA Hack and the Coolest Custom Bench
Credit: Sophia Nikolaides Credit: Sophia Nikolaides
Credit: Sophia Nikolaides Credit: Sophia Nikolaides
Credit: Sophia Nikolaides Credit: Sophia Nikolaides
Credit: Sophia Nikolaides Credit: Sophia Nikolaides
Credit: Sophia Nikolaides Credit: Sophia Nikolaides
ABOUT THIS BEFORE & AFTER
HOME TYPE: House
PROJECT TYPE: Children's Room & Nursery
STYLE: Cottage
SKILL LEVEL: DIY
RENTAL FRIENDLY: No
Bedrooms, whether for kids or adults, are just better when they have lots of storage for clothes, toys, books, extra linens, etcetera. There are lots of ways to squeeze extra storage into a sleep space, from simple switches like adding nightstands with drawers, to more ambitious undertakings like IKEA hacks.
Here, a floor-to-ceiling IKEA PAX hack totally transforms Sophia Nickolaides’ daughters’ (@1894home) bedroom. “We previously had some wardrobes here, but they didn’t provide enough storage for the room,” Sophia says. “The wardrobes were carefully taken down and rehomed in a neighbor’s house.”
When Sophia and her husband took the wardrobes out, they did find a damp patch that needed fixing, and then after that Sophia got to work on an IKEA hack.
Two IKEA PAXes flank the windows.
“Building a wardrobe on my own was more manageable than I thought it was going to be,” she says. It’s a very tall wardrobe, and I’m quite short but did manage to build it upright on my own … I’ve done a couple of IKEA PAX hacks before, but this is the first time I’ve taken them to the ceiling and used crown molding to make them look built-in.”
The space between the window and the walls was pretty tight, so she went with approximately 29-inch-wide IKEA PAXes and then shortened them a bit so she’d have room to add crown molding. She used synthetic crown molding pieces instead of real wood to save money, although they were still a little difficult to install.
She didn’t have to add much material on the sides to make the PAXes look built-in; for this, she used thin strips of MDF. Because Sophia modified the height of the PAXes, she had to have custom MDF doors made for them.
The “built-in” IKEA PAXes got a coat of light pink paint.
After the shelving, trim, and doors (including their Shaker-style fronts) were finalized, Sophia painted the units a neutral pink (Little Greene’s Castell Pink). She also added door pulls from Zara Home to the new wardrobes.
The window frame is painted gold (Little Greene’s Madeleine) for a pop of color.
The wall also has the coolest customizable feature.
Sophia and her daughter were torn between adding a desk or a window seat between the two PAXes, so they went with the best of both worlds. “I couldn’t decide so found a way to have both by adding batten at two heights, and the worktop just slides in,” Sophia says.
When it’s in bench mode, it has a cushion that Sophia made herself using a cottage-y floral fabric. The end result is adorable-meets-practical. “I love that we now have so much storage, and we use one wardrobe for my daughter’s clothes, and the other for all her toys and crafts,” Sophia says.
Inspired? Submit your own project here.
Further Reading
We Tested (and Rated!) Every Sofa at West Elm — Here Are the Best for Every Type of Need
Everything You’ve Ever Wanted To Know About Article’s DTC Furniture
