Hacking IKEA's HYLLIS Shelves

If you pretend for a moment that my house is actually Isaac Mizrahi’s apartment (I wish), the wall you’re looking at in the picture above would be the same one Isaac’s giant piece of art is hanging on. If we started the opening a foot or so in from the left (to accommodate the shelves), you can see that our opening would be way too narrow. So my shelving idea? Not gonna work.

Then we decided to hold off on opening up the wall, in part because we’ve discovered there are some things we like about having separate spaces, but mostly because I’m having a really hard time deciding on flooring and we don’t want to start to ripping things up until we know what we’re putting down.

So yes, I had to patch those holes.

And do something about the stacks of books littering our living room floor.

I started thinking about what kind of shelving would work and pretty quickly settled on the idea of open metal shelving, preferably black:

spotted here

spotted here

spotted here

Of course, I also wanted inexpensive shelving knowing that our plans may change when we start opening up walls. I purchased three IKEA HYLLIS shelving units via Kijiji, and painted them using TREMCLAD Rust Paint galvanized primer in grey and TREMCLAD Rust Paint in flat black. It was tedious work, but I’m really impressed with the finish (I used a foam brush and a small roller, and sanded the shelving units lightly before priming).

I had some drips that I should have done a better job sanding out between coats, but I couldn’t be bothered and they’re honestly not noticeable unless you’re looking for them (you can see them in the picture above near the screws on the left-hand side).

I secured the shelves to the wall with screws and anchors, not only to prevent them from toppling over should a certain little person attempt a climb, but also to keep them square. I love how they turned out, especially loaded up with books, art, plants and a few other precious-to-me things.

Adam’s parents have an old desk in their garage that we’re going to bring home with us, and the plan is to create a little ‘office nook’ behind the couch so that I have a better set-up when I’m working from home.

This is how the other side of the room looks currently. You can see that I still need to recover the seat on the chimney box (it lifts up and firewood can be stored inside), but that’s my fabric. More updates soon!