Housewife Eclectic

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Ikea Hack: Spice Rack to Doll Closet

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I only have two kids, but there is a third one that seems to follow my family wherever we go. No, it isn’t a dog, my husband would have a heart attack. It is a doll. Lily has been apart of our family for four years, ever since my daughter got her for Christmas one year. She goes on every trip, every sleepover at grandma’s house, it is all I can do to keep her from coming on every trip to the store.
Over the years, Lily has gathered almost as many clothes as a regular member of the family and since she doesn’t grow out of them, they just keep piling up. We needed a place to hang up all of her clothes/dress ups and when I saw this Ikea Spice Rack, I knew it was perfect. All it needed was a new perspective on it. The best thing about this hack, is how easy it is. No saws, just flipping the shelf upside down.

You will need:

 

You can either paint all of the pieces of your shelf separately and then put it together, or put it together and paint it as a whole. Since I never plan on taking it apart again, I put it together first.

The shelf is bare wood, but it is always a good idea to run some sand paper over a project before you start painting. Since the wood doesn’t have a full finish on it, a couple minutes should do just fine.

I needed two coats of white paint to cover my shelf. Makes sure you paint the entire shelf inside and out.

Use stickers or cut vinyl for the top of the shelf. This would be a great place to let your child personalize and decorate the shelf themselves. We went with vinyl flowers that my daughter picked after about 45 minutes of scrolling through options. We apparently take closets very seriously in our house.

The one snag with this shelf, is that is is obviously meant to hang the other way. If you try to hang it upside down with nails it will sit off the wall. In order to make it sit snugly against the wall, I hung it using hanging strips. I trimmed the strips a little so they wouldn’t be visible when the shelf was hanging and used three strips to secure it.

We love this little shelf. It doesn’t take up every much room, but has a huge impact on how we use Lily’s space! What fun things have you made with an Ikea Spice Rack?

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  3. says

    That is so cute!! You've given me a great idea to make a little coat rack for my boys that is lower at their level. I'm the one that has to hang all the coats and backpacks because they can't reach. This would be great!! Thanks for the idea!

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  12. Kristin says

    I just stumbled upon this idea on Pinterest and I love it!!! Thank you for sharing! We happened to have two of these ikea spice racks that were left over from using others that we had purchased as book shelves for the kid's books. They've been sitting around not being used; now I know just what to use them for!! Also, I wanted to let you know that I was able to unscrew the silver hanging plates on the back to flip them around, in order to make hanging them easier. Just wanted to pass that along. Thank you so much!!

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