IKEA Hack #3

2009 October

IKEA HACK #3, Garden Window Shelf

Although Em didn't ask for it, I decided she needed more room for her kitchen gear so I built a shelf above our garden window from three 31-1/2" GRUNDTAL open stainless steel wall shelves ($15 each). To maximize the distance between the top of the shelf and the ceiling, I cut off the lower part of the brackets which mount to the walls (this means that the entire shelving unit is held to the wall with 3 screws instead of 6). I also cut each rail so that the length of the combined units would match the length of the garden window. Finally, I devised a solution so that back to back shelves would share a single support bracket. The solution involved threaded bars and nuts which fit snugly inside the rails. I'm not keeping it a secret, but it would be hard to explain , so you'll have to contact me if you want to know how I did it.

Instead of 3 separate shelves with 6 brackets combining to a length of almost 8 feet, I hacked the units into a single custom shelf which matches the window width.

Here's a close up view of bars from either side coming into a single bracket. Without the hack, you would see back to back brackets here instead.

And here's the end of the shelf, where you can see that the bottom of the bracket has been removed and also the decorative nut for the threaded bar which runs continuously through the three outermost bars.

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