My Very First Ikea HACK!

by Liz

After my first 8 wonderful years (so far. ptoo, ptoo) of being married, we finally caved and bought a nice couch! Well of course we all know - If you give a mouse a cookie, He's going to ask for a glass of milk. In this case - I'm the mouse, the couch is the cookie, and the glass of milk is...well... a million other things I know NEEDED (read: desperately wanted) for my living room.

my very first ikea hack, living room ideas, repurposing upcycling, storage ideas, reupholster

So we gave in a bought a few things, a new rug, some pretty throw pillows and this Expidit from IKEA for the kids toys. I always wanted to have a nice little corner of the living room for my kids to be able to play near me. Since we live in a small rental yelling "kids! go play in the play room!" is not an option for me as we have no play room! And with a 4.5 year old girl and 2 year old twin boys (G-d please give me strength) they certainly need a small corner to play nicely (read: completely destroy).

So we came home with this piece, lay it on its side (in IKEA it's sold standing up) so the toys would be easily accessible to the kids and it looked empty! I then remembered a great hack I had seen floating around the internet, so I got to work!

All it took was a measured piece of MDF board, foam from an old crib mattress my sister was throwing out, and a nice piece of coordinating fabric, and in under an hour hubby and I created this bench for the kids to hang out on. It's thick, it's comfy, and it keeps the kids happy (well for 2 minutes anyway. Sigh...).