FÖRHÖJA Cart For Art: Another Ikea Hack

The new MOPPE sideboard that I built replaced this Ikea FÖRHÖJA"kitchen cart," previously used as a kitchen island and more recently as a storage piece in the living room.  It was home to a 10g fishtank (recently updated to a 20g), a potted Benjamina Ficus, four Ikea SNALIS plastic storage bins filled with aquarium supplies and other random items, and a cat scratcher nobody was using anymore.

I loved my FÖRHÖJA, I just wanted to change the color and repurpose it.

So I Did! 

Meet my new art cart/table!  Many, many coats of stain and sanding sessions went into this. People, there were problems with staining this thing.  All told I went through four different stains, who knows how many coats of each, and sanded it all down and started over THREE TIMES.  The end result of all that abuse is a cart that's a bit rustic looking, which I did not want, but it's FINE the way it IS because it's DONE.  HMPH!

Anyway. I actually do love it now that it's finished. :)

This thing has 30+ pieces.  That was a lot of staining and sanding and staining.

So! Much! Storage! 

So many drawers!  Baskets! Stuff!!

I added a two-prong hook to the front for aprons and towels; and a hanging Ikea basket (BYGEL, spray painted gold) to the side to hold large tools and bottles and brushes.


I got the water hyacinth baskets on Amazon, and lemmetellya, they're my favorite thing about this whole piece.  I looooove the way these things smell. 

The MOPPE drawer boxes on top are the ones I made in August.

I also added a 6" board to the top, on a pair of long tension hinges, so that I could extend the table top for a larger work surface, and also have some storage space behind/under the unit for large canvases and boards...but it doesn't work!

Turns out the long hinges aren't strong enough to hold up the extension when you put any weight on it (I think they're made more for holding trunk/chest lids open); so eventually I'll need to get a better holdy-uppy solution so I can use the extension.














As much trouble as the stain and the hinges have been, I LOVE it now that it's finally done!  It's taller than my old art table, which is fantastic - I'm 5'9, I have a tall easel, and I like BIG canvases.  It also takes up significantly less floor space than my old table, which opens up the "art room" behind the couch.  The extra floor space also helps with getting Shelly in and out of the back door - she's weird about her walking clearance, and won't go through anything too narrow, and won't step over, like, a SHOE that's in her path. Weird dog. (She's really old). 

More space in a tiny duplex is always welcome! 

Now I have a great new space to do more stuff like this:

Volcanic Seascape, November 2018, after a USGS photo of Hawaii's coastline back in July when Kileauea erupted

[Funko Pop] Bob Ross, patron saint of aspiring artists ❤

A Chair I Keep Changing

In 2011 I bought an Ikea NOMINELL task chair - normally $140, but I got it from the as-is section (a floor model) for $10. The first thing I did when I got it home was to destroy the back cover and make a copy of it. I did it again in 2015:

2011 Original chair                               2011 back cover                                    2015 back & seat

Over this past weekend, I changed my task chair again: 

This is the same peacock fabric on the back that is in the living room throw pillows, the seat of the KAUSTBY side chair, and the hanging on the fireplace.

I left the seat the original black, but gave it a thorough cleaning.  I'd read somewhere online that you can clean and restore microfiber fabrics with rubbing alcohol and a soft nail brush.  I'd never tried it, so over the weekend I tried it on this cloth seat and a microfiber office chair that belongs to my roommate - and let me tell you, it works GREAT!  This seat, and Sylvan's chair, look practically brand new.

You can't see it, but there's a 17" zipper in one side of the chair back, to make the cover fit tightly.  The bottom of the back cover has a drawstring that's tucked inside the cover once it's tight.

Now the only thing to do to this chair is take a knife to the wheels and dig out nearly 8 years of thread and pet hair that's clogged the wheels so much that they no longer roll!  Grosssss.


More stuff soon!