Customize Your Life

Posted by Matt Cipriano | No Comments

It sounds like it could be the catch phrase for a Scion or the new Ikea add, but no, it is a line I picked-up (and rephrased) from this NY Times Article about “hacking” Ikea furniture. Re-purposing or redesigning Ikea pieces to fit better with your lifestyle or personal aesthetic.

This article probably appeals to me because I love DIY projects. This past weekend, around 1am Saturday night I re-wired an overhead light that had been sitting around… My desk is constructed out of plywood and plumbing supplies and last summer I built a waterfall in my backyard with some PVC piping, an old futon frame, a claw foot bathtub and a water pump. So, yeah, the whole DIY thing is appealing to me.

Anyway, the article is essentially a 3 page (online) fluff piece, but it does link to some good an interesting sites (sites I was going to include in this article even prior to discovering that they were already included on the third page). First there is Ikea Hacker, a site new to me, that takes your standard Ikea items and mods them into new different things, each project seems to range in complexity from a few minutes with a screw driver to mixing and pouring concrete. The article mentions ReadyMade Magazine, which I feel used to be a great magazine with some really great ideas, but from what I have seen of them recently, well, let’s just say I am not going to bother linking to their website. Next up we have Instuctables, I fell like I have previous written about Instructables, but I just don’t have it in me this mornign to go and check.

Anyway, Instructables is a great site with a variety of DIY projects, Ikea based and otherwise (I actually found a suggestion for turning a coat closet into a pantry which I did in my own apartment) and definitely worth checking out. Make Magazine is a great DIYers magazine, but for those with tendencies leaning slightly more towards electronics, though it is still pretty awesome and worth checking out. Last up we have Etsy. Etsy is a place to sell your DIY projects and buy other the projects made by other folks. They’ve been around a while so they have quite a community built up and plenty of things worth checking out (plus some interesting ways to search for them as well (check out the Time Machine 1 & 2). All in all, as a fluff piece it still got me brainstorming about what my next project is going to be. Maybe I will need to check out my local Ikea and see what’s popping at Instuctables.

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