My brain hurts with decisions. Anyone with me? What I love about the One Room Challenge is you feel like your apart of a collective group of creatives as you tackle your space. You are up late working on something and you know someone else out there is doing the same. I love the community of inspiration and encouragement. I love the accountability of the 6 week deadline. Here is the one thing that makes my brain hurt during the ORC…
….Fast Decisions
You have six weeks so you have to make decisions and be confident. There is not much time to question a decision. There are too many things to do! So lets pause there and talk about what I am doing this week. It is a fun project but it needs to get done so we can make decisions.
Five Years ago I purchased parts of the Ikea Ivar system to make my sons built ins. We loved the open feeling it gave. I originally wanted built ins but we decided to try this first. It was affordable and quick to install.
You buy the Ivar system with shelves and side units. The shelves come with its own attachment hardware which makes them “unhackable”… is that a word? This means the dimensions of the unit are unchangeable. We wanted them to feel custom so we bought 5 side panels and headed home to purchase wood from our local lumber yard.
The side panels have holes so I knew pins like these would work.. and they did!
I think we spent $200 on wood, fasters and side panels and paint. A great price for custom built ins.
My goal for this challenge is to finally finish them out to look more built in.
We simply took 1/4 cabinet grade plywood and placed it on the side. This would go on any outside exposed edge. Since two sides of the wall terminated into the wall we only needed two.
Here is a closer look. It doesn’t sit flush with the side panels. When the top and bottom are trimmed the sides will have more of a shaker style.
The Ivar shelves have horizontal bracing on the sides of the units. We could have put the 1/4 inch on both sides but it would cover up the holes. There is no way the sturdy enough drilling into 1/4 plywood to hold shelves that will carry books. We needed the holes for the clips. It will get painted.
We lined the inside with inexpensive 1/8 inch mdf.
If it were just one bookcase you might not need to line the insides but we needed the pieces up against the wall and in the middle to look built in.
You can see in these two photos the mdf is on both sides of the Ivar Side Panel. The shelves are longer on the right side of the built in. To make the shelves more sturdy for books and things we added wall cleats that will be hidden by face trim on the shelves.
How are we finishing out the top and the bottom? We are for sure figure out as we go. The bottom got a base and we are going to wrap with with trim that matches the wall trim. The top? Not sure yet.
The shelves we are using a combination of clips, the old shelves, and some finish trim to bulk the shelves out. The clips are for sturdiness. Will not be able to move the shelves.
The Decisions
What color should I paint the built ins? The safe part of me says the color of the trim Benjamin Moore Simply White. The fun part of me wants to paint them blue.
My favorite deep blue colors are Farrow and Ball Hague Blue
Benjamin Moore Polo Blue, which is a new favorite from a friend’s kitchen remodel paint samples.
Last decision. Do I like the wall paper? From the pictures online it looks more like brushstroke grid lines. In real life the grids are this twisty traditional line.
Do I love it enough? These are the quick decisions that are hard for me. In real time I would order samples of others and see what I think. There is no time for that. It’s either going up or getting returned.
From far off it looks great. Will it be too busy? Will it be too much? My son likes it a lot but will he get vertigo looking at it? One wall or all? My son and I say all. My husband says one.
My brain hurts…
Until Next week:
- Make sure you check out the featured designers spaces here.
- Today all the guest participants showed their progress. Check out how it’s going for them here.
- If you missed my first three posts check out the series by following the links: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3
This is great. Could you explain how you attached the cabinet grade plywood to the ivar unit? Thanks so much.
There are cross beams in the ivar unit and we attached the plywood to those cross beams. We did it on both sides so it would look truly built in. We used thin plywood but yet strong enough to hold its shape. Hope this helps.