IKEA Creative DIY Projects for your Home Office | Week 2 Spring 2022 ORC

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Want to know the best creative DIY projects for your home office renovation? This is everything you need to know to start the transformation of your home office into the most stylish, organized and productive space in your home!

Ikea hacks are all the rage these days! It's no surprise that Ikea's budget friendly furniture can inspire a multitude of creative DIY projects for your home.

First, you will learn the best way to shop for furniture that fits your office space. Next, you will learn the steps to creating a desktop of your own, ultimately saving you a tremendous amount of money! Lastly, you will see how I glammed up the doors to make this home office stand out from the moment you walk into the office space!

This home office renovation is a labor of love that you can pull inspiration from. In the end, you'll be able to customize the home office of your dreams!

This post is all about creative DIY projects for your home office renovation!

Ikea Hack Creative DIY Projects

The Ikea Furniture

As I stated in week one, there are so many options available at Ikea for built-in DIY projects! With my only true requirement for the built-ins being that it have a space for my work printer, I was able to quickly narrow down my options. Many of the Ikea cabinets with doors were not deep enough for my printer, so those were eliminated. I love drawers and had already contemplated completing my office built-ins with dressers, but this sealed the deal.

The first thing that you need to do before you sit down and decide on which Ikea furniture you want to use is measure your space! I measured the length of the space that I wished to install built-ins as well as the depth of my printer. My work printer was an item that I wished to either conceal in the lower cabinet or have sit on top of the countertop.

After considering depth I evaluated the width of my options and the total length of the wall. My original intent was to make this a wall of built-ins, so I had flexibility in the height. However, while planning I decided that rather than 5 dressers, I would use 4. Using 4 dressers allowed for space in the middle of the room for an extra workspace. It also cut down on the space planning and trim size! With that decided I needed to consider the height of the dressers so that the desk was the appropriate height.

Ultimately, I decided upon the Songesand 3 drawer dresser. 3 drawers, a simple shaker-like drawer front, and the perfect width, depth and height! Once I saw they were in stock, I immediately made a bee-line to my local Ikea to purchase the Songesand dressers. After that first purchase, I worked on removing the baseboards! Note my adorable four legged helper/supervisor Bella!

For the bookshelves, I considered my options between Hemnes and Billy. However, for the price and quality, it was not hard to choose Billy bookcases! I decided that I wanted a place for a focal point in the middle, whether that be art, my scratch map or a bulletin board. Thus, I choose both the 31.5 in and 15.5 in bookcase options for each side of the built-ins.

Once I saw that the Billy bookshelves were in stock, I made my second trip to Ikea!

I was far too eager to wait, so I put Ikea hack creative DIY projects to the test to verify that I loved it. The answer was yes, I LOVED it as much as I thought I would! And my other four legged supervisor carefully surveyed my work! Or perhaps she was investigating places to climb!

The DIY Countertop

This countertop you are about to see is my pride and joy. I was nervous to try to create it myself, but I'm so glad that I did! And I know you can do it too! I searched in the Charlotte, NC area for a place that could create a custom countertop, and after much searching and pricing, most places wanted $700 - $1000 to create this 13+ ft countertop! Hard pass!

I took to youtube to figure out if it was a possibility for me to do this on my own! I learned and researched A LOT! So, I decided that I would try it out, and if it looked horrendous, well I was only out the cost of the wood, my new Ryobi planer and my time!

HOLY MOLY, this Ryobi planer is my new favorite tool! Excluding the "beginner" costs, of the planer, wood glue, clamps and Ryobi sander with different grain sandpaper, this project was a huge cost saver! The wood cost me $40! Once I add in the pre-stain, stain and the top coat, the total cost for the countertop is less than $90! (Stain reveal next week!) Needless to say, I did awesome!

I did borrow some of my dad's tools.... hence the sad face photo that I sent to my dad when I broke his sander! Whoops! (Still on my to do list- fix dad's sander!)

The key to edge joining my 3 boards was patience! Here's a list of my biggest creative DIY projects take aways:

1. Find boards that are as straight/flat as possible. Don't be afraid to dig in that wood pile at your hardware store!

2. Grab a friend! 14ft x 2 x 8 boards are no joke! A huge thanks to my handsome man, Steven for helping me with cutting the edges of these boards straight and square on my table saw, also called jointing. Please read up on how to joint 2 boards together. I watched many a video, and read over tons of articles. Everyone has a slightly different way. The biggest take away is that you need your 2 boards to sit together completely so there are no gaps. This will allow you to glue your boards together properly.

3. Make sure you don't use too much glue and that when you glue your boards together and clamp them, that you make sure they are sitting flush against each other and are level!

4. Wipe off any excess glue around the 15-20 minute mark. At this point you can use a flat edge to get the glue up easily, since it's started to harden. Trust me, you don't want to leave this glue on your boards as it's hard to sand off and ultimately stain!

5. When you plane your boards, make sure you put it on the lowest setting! I did "practice" on the side that I determined was the underside and quickly learned that using the setting that takes away the most wood was the WORST idea! It's incredibly hard to get the entire board flat again. I struggled with that big time! For my "this end up" side, i used the smallest setting and it worked like a dream!

6. When it was time to sand, i used a belt sander and then a 1/4 sander. I used 80 grit, 120 grit and 220 grit sandpaper. (I like purchasing full sheets of sand paper and cutting them down- it adds to the cost savings!) My countertop is smooth as can be!

7. As a friendly reminder, walls likely aren't straight, so measure measure measure! My wall goes in by about 1/2 an inch on one side of my office, so i had to cut the counter top at a bit of a diagonal to fit! The back wall also was not straight, so i used the planar to trim the long edge up in certain places along the back wall edge.

I did finish the job in my office which was a MESS, but it was a STRUGGLE to get the 13+ ft board maneuvered into my office with Steven's help and I decided I was not moving it back out of the room!

Office Door Glam Up

Last, but not least is the easiest of all the DIY projects completed this week. I went bold and painted both the office doors as well as the front door Sherwin Williams Iron Ore! This is one of my biggest bangs for the least amount of bucks! I'm in love!

My favorite product that I used is Jasco Mask & Peel! It's such a time saver!

This product made this project so easy! You paint a fairly thick coat onto your entire glass pane as well as the trim instead of taping up to paint. It dries clear then you paint over the trim with your paint color of choice and it acts like painters tape!

When you complete your paint coats, you score the edges on the glass where the trim meets glass, with a razor blade. Then peel what is now a plastic wrap like layer right off! If you accidentally didn't put enough Mask & Peel and notice this when you are trying to peel it off, you can add more to make it thicker. Once it dries you can go ahead and and peel right off. How cool is that? You NEED it!

Week 2 of the one room challenge was a success and I am excited to inch closer to the finish line!

Don't forget to continue to check out all of the One Room Challenge rooms! There are so many creative DIY projects in the making! I can hardly wait until reveal day in May!

IKEA Creative DIY Projects for your Home Office | Week 2 Spring 2022 ORC