I am so tickled with the way this project turned out that I can barely contain my excitement long enough to write this post. Hopefully I can contain myself long enough to make this a helpful post for you all and share how I went about doing this Ikea billy bookcase hack.
There are a lot of Ikea Billy Bookcase hacks out there on the inter webs. A lot of them are meh and others are really complicated building bases and headers and cutting apart shelves. I just knew that there had to be an easier way. One day I held up a scrap piece of 1 x 4 MDF to the bottom and realized that the existing base of the bookcase shelf was the same size. This was a big lightbulb, I didn't need to build any sort of base to prop up my faux built ins. That little discovery made this all seem very doable, so literally an hour later I was at the Home Depot buying trim pieces to take a stab at it.
Here is what trim I ended up using:
I purchased all primed MDF boards, they are more cost friendly and are also more uniform so you don't need to worry about things being bowed or warped as much, which is perhaps the most frustrating thing when doing trim work.
- 4- 8 ft 1 x 4
- 2- 8 ft 1 x 6
- 7- 8 ft 1 x 2
Amy R says
LOVE how you completed this so SIMPLY. I am overwhelmed by other tutorials. This one is perfect for me. What is the top 1x6 secured to? Just the shelf itself or did you add a frame? And are the end 1x2’s wider than the sidewall of the shelf? Looking forward to your reply and then I’m heading straight to Home Depot!