Ikea Billy Hack... Almost Like a Built In!

We've got a big wall in our living room that's been bugging me for years. Our house is small to begin with, so space is at a premium. This wall felt like we should have been utilizing it more effectively but somehow it never gelled in my mind.

Enter my new obsession, Pinterest. That place inspires the mind like no one's business. I came across a project that is forever etched in my mind, IHeartOrganizing's billy built-in IKEA hack...also inspired from another blogger, Maillardville Manor's hack (actually they did two!).

Now we're not really crafty. Well, rephrase. My husband CAN be crafty but he doesn't have much time so he prefers to do other things with the time he does have. I am a crafty dabbler, but my idea usually is where my mind gets way ahead of the actual execution and I just want the finished product.

It's Mother's Day. I show my better half the blog and he says the magic words: "We can do that". Done. Well in my mind anyway. So as part of my Mother's Day (and our 7th anniversary) gift, we embark on this project.

First off, the bloggers make it sound so easy. It might be because they list things in simple steps, such as 'head to store, buy moulding, screw bookcases together and paint'. Easy peasy! Except if you don't have simple things like a miter box or an air nailer then it's all just that much harder. However, WE DID IT! It took a total of 2 weekends and there's still a few things that need to be finished up, but it looks amazing and I am so proud of us, well really mostly my husband but I like to think I helped too.

Here's how it all went down.

1. Obsessively research your space and the Billy specs and look online for any type of built-in bookcase that you remotely like, save them all to Pinterest for repeated viewings.
2. Buy bookcases at IKEA. Have husband assemble the boxes/frames only. No shelves, no backing.
3. Head to Home Depot with husband and toddler in tow for moulding and top scouting mission. Spend 2 hours here and come home with not much info on moulding or MDF tops, but with a bunch of cut-to-size beadboard wall paneling which will go on the Billy backs instead of the IKEA cardboard. Oh and a few samples of moulding to 'see' what you like.
4. Argue with husband over whether or not painting the beadboard in the evenings during the week will actually help progress the project faster come Saturday morning (the day of reckoning aka building).
5. Paint beadboard in the evenings.
6. Prop one Billy up against a scant area of space on your wall and eyeball it on and off with beadboard paneling for the rest of the week. Obsess. Scour Pinterest and the internet for more bookcases and moulding comparisons.
7. Have husband disassemble the entire existing wall as it stands now and remove old furniture to your Mother's house (or any family member willing to take excess furniture!)
8. Line up the bookcases on your space. Take pictures with and without backing/beadboard paneling and obsess for the next hour over yay or nay. Then spend the next 3 hours on HomeDepot.com trying to find a moulding for top and bottom you actually like and can imagine on the bookcases (outcome: never happens). Take yourself off to bed at 12:30am wondering why the other bloggers who did this hack were able to do it so quickly and easily without hours of research.
9. Wake up early and make detailed list for husband to take to Home Depot. Send him off with a cup of coffee and no breakfast and tell him to be home in an hour and a half.
10. The MDF top (3/4" thick), the top moulding (for under the top), a miter box, small finishing nails, 2 small finishing hammers, your husband and a bag of donuts arrive back home.
11. Assembly actually commences. Husband works for 7 hours straight except for one 30 minute break to attach the beadboard to the bookcases, screw the bookcases together, secure them to the wall in 2 places, affix the MDF to the top, and cut/miter the moulding. I help by hammering the moulding into place and filling holes with wood filler (this is all I was allowed to do by the way!!).
12. Head to Home Depot the next day for the bottom moulding, and small pieces of finish trim to fill in some areas. Cut/miter the bottom moulding, attach, fill holes and sand flat.
13. Paint the finish, trim, moulding, and the top a color matched color to the Billys (I took in a shelf to have it color matched in Satin).
14. Put the shelves in, and start to decorate (best part!)....99% done!

A project is never really 100% done. But we're almost there. It was not HARD, if we can do it, honestly anyone can. And my obsessiveness over the moulding was borderline crazy...but I blame a slow week at work on the fact I even had mental capacity to obsess.

So for anyone considering this, DO IT. It has transformed our room and I simply love it. Best part is if we really wanted to we could take it with us when we moved, as it's only attached to the wall in 2 areas and it is still 3 large pieces. But for now we're simply enjoying it.

Total cost was around $360 for 171" of finished shelving about 42.5" high.
Bookcases: $250ish
Moulding: $40ish
MDF Top: $31
Paint: $10
Misc (miter box, nails, hammers): $30

We have a table saw but it's in storage so we did this entire job with only a hand saw and a miter box. Home Depot cut our MDF top for us to specs, and our beadboard for us (something like 8 cuts, they are awesome!) for free. We just tried to go during a not busy time to ensure it wasn't a hassle for them.

We had a custom paint color matched but I also picked up a test sample of Glidden GL02 and it actually is an almost perfect match, so wonderful that I can use it as a touchup. Only downer is it is in Eggshell and I chose Satin for the bookcase, but in a pinch it won't matter. Martha Stewart's Talc is also very close match.

And I am still working out the best way to decorate it and how to use the new storage space it affords us. You can see our little x-pen for our curious toddler, can't wait to get rid of it soon. I still really am entirely floored because I can't believe we did this and we don't even really know what we are doing. Thank you Pinterest for fueling my dormant DIY spirit, and huge props & a thanks to this post @IHeartOrganizing, an amazing blog that gave me the idea in the first place. On Pinterest too? Find me!