FIRA

This is the bank of Ikea MOPPEs that I finished at the beginning of August.  Sort of a card-catalog-y look, to store my art supplies in.

MOPPE is Ikea's answer to all the crafty people who are and will forever be upset that they discontinued the FIRA.  Looking back, I wish I'd bought a bazillion FIRAs to play with; but at least I have one.

It started life as this jewelry box, stained, painted, and lined with fabric.

I don't know when this was, maybe 2009? 2011?

It got a makeover in 2012, in which I painted it white, papered the insides of the drawers, and attached little knobs to the drawers and painted wooden candlesticks to use as feet.

In 2014 it became a coffee station organizer.  Painted brown and decorated with label holders from some cardboard Ikea photo boxes similar to the FJALLA they have now. In this pic there's a little tray on top that I painted to match.

Four years later it's looking a little crappy. The label holders keep coming off, and the labels don't stay in place anymore. The finish is chipped and scratched, and let's face it, brown paint is NOT stain.

It was time for an upgrade.

FIRA getting stripped;                     holes in the fronts from the label holders;            tearing paper off the insides. 

I stripped the whole thing down and re-stained it.   I re-papered the drawers, but first I repainted the insides using the same Rustoleum "Chalky" spray paint that I used to makeover the Ikea RASKOG cart in the living room.  I also put little corner feet on the box, and used white paper covered with Washi tape for the labels.

♥ ♥ ♥

My coffee and tea rest secure once again. The FIRA now sort of matches the MOPPEs, and makes a much more attractive coffee-stuff organizer.  I love the feet! They mean that we can store fewer little odds-n-ends on top of the FIRA (less clutter is good!), but I've always loved how raised furniture makes a space feel bigger and more open than it is - even if it's only a 12x16" piece of mini-furniture on a counter.

Random papers in the drawers, and you can sort of see the taupe ("mink") Chalky paint inside

The entire coffee center, next to the kitchen sink. 

Because I know there's at least one of you who's noticed this:  yes, the feet prevent the two side drawers on the bottom row from opening.  You can get to them by removing the center drawer and sliding the corner drawers to the center to pull out.  I have things in those side drawers that we won't need very often, like filters for the Keurig, and tea accessories we almost never use, because neither of us is a huge tea drinker.  I love these little feet, and I'm okay with the sacrifice they required, hehe.

Also, yes, I will be writing on those labels, just as soon as I get a new Sharpie with a good, chiseled point. All the sharpies at home are dulled from writing on cardboard in the move.

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"Scorpio Manor" Lives!

Heehee. That's what all of our friends are calling it (because we're both Scorpios).  :)

Sylvan's all moved in, and we're slowing working our way through mountains of boxes, unpacking and putting things away, rearranging furniture, and getting her settled in.   Her cats and my cats and dogs are getting along astonishingly well!  I've *never* seen a pet merge go as smoothly as this is going, and thank goodness for it. The giant craft room - aka The Room of Requirement - is coming along nicely, but it's not done enough for photos just yet.  I have a big project in the works for the living room, and I'll show you some of that tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are a couple of bits and pieces from the kitchen:

Ikea's BYGEL rail system up, where a wooden shelf used to be.

An old wooden Ikea dish drainer, disassembled and made into a plate rack to display some very old, blue glass Ikea plates.

I love a good, messy, decorated fridge.  ^_^

My old Ikea FIRA chest made over into a coffee station.  It stores k-cups, tea, cider, and cocoa; as well as spoons, filters, and other little Keurig bits.  A tray on top, painted to match, holds sugar and a couple of decorative creamer pitchers (one from Ikea, one an antique Mikasa which I adore).

The dry goods jars are currently labeled "Existential Angst", "Despair," "Rage", and "Rice."  Because...rice.

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Re-hacking An Ikea Hack

Part of the impending closet makeover includes doing something new and cute with my Ikea FIRA jewelry chest.  I'd stained and painted it many years ago...

BEFORE(2009)

I liked it, but the fabric lining came out pretty quickly, so I replaced it with paper in 2010, and it's been that way ever since.  Until last night...

deglosser, sandpaper, paint, wood glue, a bowl to dump the
contents of the box, craft wood for new drawer fronts 

painting the box, inside (sort of) and out

drawers, too, the fronts of which got a new face, to cover
up the little pull-holes that are, for some reason, in BOTH
sides of the drawers so you can't just turn them around. 

tiny wooden knobs, and wooden candlesticks,
spray-painted with gold metallic paint.  

AFTER!

insides and outsides of each drawer painted blue for a little
sumpn-sumpn when the drawers are opened up.   

The entire project cost me five whole dollars, for two packs of tiny wooden knobs and a pack of wooden candlesticks to use as feet.  The paint and everything I already had.  

Last night I also picked up that craigslist dresser, and it's even more awesome than I thought it would be.  I can't wait to get started painting that, too. :) 

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Wildebeests: Jewelry Organization

After seeing the many, awesome, creative treatments of Ikea's "Fira" mini-chests on IkeaHacker, I decided two years ago to try my own.  Could. Not. Resist!

Ikea's "Fira" is one of my favorite things in the world - it's versatile, inexpensive, and pretty sturdy for being made of like, recycled tinkertoys. ;)   And since I did my jewelry box, I'd always intended to go back and purchase several more, just to have around in case I ever got around to executing my other ideas for the piece.  So many possibilities!  

And only $15!

I've seen these used to organize jewelry, tools, workshop odds-n-ends, art supplies, beads, sewing notions; I've seen them combined to create totally new furniture, mounted on walls as mini-shelving, hollowed out and made into cubby holes, used as cash registers at craft shows and festivals; I've seen them painted, decoupaged, wallpapered, beaded, trimmed with molding - you name it, it's been done to the Fira.  

 just a few of the hundreds and hundreds

of awesome Fira hacks out there

For starters, I bought a 5-drawer model to suit my particular needs:  a large drawer for bracelets, a large drawer for hair things, and the three small drawers across the top for earrings, more earrings, and small perfume bottles and lipsticks:

uh...pardon the sort-of nudity? 

The design on the front was inspired by a batik tjap (the wooden blocks they use to stamp designs onto batik in Indonesia);  the insides of the drawers were lined with a blue and black tie-dyed cotton batik (what? I like batik).   

SSF:  Sorry So Fuzzy

...And then, as I often do, I got tired of it after a while, LOL.  What can I say, I'm fickle I LIKE CHANGE.  Earlier this year I painted only the outside of the chest an intense Chinese-red, and aged it with paint and stain - the drawer fronts I left alone, because I love the design on them.  I think the red sets it off very nicely, too.  

The feet visible in this picture have been on my Fira since I brought it home - they're just not visible in the old pictures.  They're $1 wooden knobs from the hobby store, painted black. 

I also removed the fabric from the drawers when I repainted the outside.  It was nice having something soft to touch when I reached inside, but I got over it after several bracelets and earrings caught on the fabric and pulled it up from the sides of the drawers, making it a piece I constantly had to repair instead of one I could just enjoy using.  

This time, I purchased several sheets of scrapbooking paper and lined the drawers with them.  No fancy decoupage or anything - I simply painted the inside of the drawers a vivid turquoise to contrast with the red, clear-coated the insides to prevent scratches, and laid sections of the paper over the wet Polycrylic.  It wrinkled up a tad at first, but it smoothed itself out as the paint dried.  Very, very pleased with the end result.

Sadly, Ikea discontinued the Fira line in February of this year.  Noooo! I never got a chance to go back and got a frillion of them!  At least I managed to get this one.  Big poopyheads.