Ikea Hemnes cabinet hack: basic to designer!

 A functional storage space is a necessity in every home, even more so when you have a narrow entryway. We all need something to liven up that area at the same time not take too much space. 

My inspo for this design piece

    I loved this sideboard from west elm but did not get it for 2 reasons.

    1. It was too broad for my entryway, I wanted something slimmer.

    2. It was too expensive .

For this project I felt that the Ikea Hemnes shoe cabinets would be perfect. It has a small footprint and functional storage. However it has a very basic design and I wanted to update it to something more chic. 

Ikea Hemnes Shoe Cabinet

  List Of things needed :

1.     2 Ikea Hemnes Units

2.     1 Wooden board 84" x8.5" 

3.     1 miter saw with 60 teeth blade or 1 japanese fine toothed hand saw

4.     Sanding blocks or sand papers 80/120/220

5.     Wooden dowels 6 feet long -15-16 for this project. Number varies if design changes. 

6.     Minwax Prestain (optional but recommended ) 8 oz

7.     Minwax stains : golden oak, gunstock and golden pecan (you can choose to use single stain), 8 oz

8.     Minwax polycrylic (optional ), 8 oz

9.     Zinser 123 primer - smallest size you can find

10.   Whisper White by BEHR - sample size

11.    Angled Brush

12.    Cotton Rag

 This project involved 2 parts. 
1.  Connect 2 ikea hemnes cabinets together to create a longer wall storage

2.  Update the cabinet front with custom design.

 part 1:

     For the first part I assembled both the cabinets as per instructions. For the last part instead of putting the top shelf individually on both units, I got a larger wooden plank cut to size from lowes (84" length and  8.5" wide). I chose 84" because I wanted longer overhang, you can choose to go with 83 or  82 if space is a constraint. Put the two cabinets side by side and attached the plank with glue. 

    For the top shelf, I first sanded it, cleaned it and then prepped it with minwax prestain. 

• Prestaining is necessary if you want uniform color absorption while staining the wood. I used a brush to apply the prestain. 
• You want to be a little generous in your application. (Initially I wasn't and results were not so nice!) 

After 15-20 min you can use a cotton rag to start staining the wood.  I wanted a light colored top. I used 3 stains in following proportions 1/3rd golden pecan 245, 1/3rd golden oak 210B and 1/3rd gunstock 231.  I got 8 fl oz cans. You can play with stain proportions until your desired shade is achieved. 

• While staining you want long consistent strokes in the direction of the wood grain. 
• Ensure you are wiping off the excess stain with a dry cloth. 

Once staining was complete I added the top coat of  water based polycrylic  with brush . I also did light sanding between staining and top coat to ensure surface is smooth and clean. Now your part 1 is complete.

Original Ikea cabinet assembly

ikea assembly with unfinished wood top

Part 2: 

Now comes the design part. I liked the west elm piece but when I imagined hemnes with similar design it felt too busy, so I created my own simplified design. 

Hardware section

In order to create that design, you can use 

a) half round wood dowels (which is what I did) 

b) Foam dowels. 

Wood Dowels you can get in any big hardware store like Lowes or Home Depot. Foam dowels you will find in art store like Michaels. For cutting wood dowels to desired length you can use hand saw or miter saw. 

• For this kind of design I would recommend miter saw to save time and energy. 
• Hand saw will give you cleaner cuts, no wood burning and lesser probability of dowel splintering (plus they are cheaper!). 
• For either saw make sure you have fine toothed blade. minimum 60 teeth for miter saw  or get a fine toothed Japanese hand saw . The default ones are not good enough.

 You would need sanding blocks (80/120/220) or electric sander.  

Design Planning  : Wood Lengths

For wood measurements, I found it easier to draw the desired pattern on the cabinet front using pencil.

I made sure that my pencil drawing had exact same width as actual dowel. Once you have one reference dowel cut, its easier to get the other 7.  I used to arrange the cut dowels in pattern on cabinet. The visual helped me plan and measure better. This is just a suggestion not a necessary step.  

   

• Cutting all the dowels for one cabinet and then moving on to the next one can be very tiring and time consuming. Faster way to do it is mark and cut same length 8 times and then move to next length. Same thing while giving angled cuts.
• you can use precut woods instead of 6 feet dowels. 
• pros: can cut multiple dowels together
• cons: there can be more wastage of wood. 
• While marking leave extra wood length on either side. You would lose that while cutting angles.

cut pieces arranged in the pattern.

Design Planning  : Wood Angles

One of the main challenges in creating this patterned design is figuring out what angles to cut the dowels to.  I could go center to center for 45 degrees standard angle. Here problem was that the dowel would need 2 cuts on the same side  to create arrow shape. The other option was not to go for 45 degree angle and shift the dowel a bit such that you would need  only 1 cut. I chose the second option. With first only the center dowel (diagonal one) would be complex, rest would be easy, With second approach everything would be moderately complex.

• Measure angle between pencil marking and edge of the cabinet front to set your miter. Do this for each edge dowel connects with. 
• Test you miter angle on a single dowel first. Align it on your pencil marking to see if it matches.
• After finding the perfect angle, now you should worry about length matching.

                                           

 I shifted my center dowel a bit and made my angles 52 and 38 degrees. On miter saw you get 45 degree angle on either side. For any angle greater than that needs a simple hack. Get any other piece of wood with flat surface, cut it at 45 degree angle and place it against the scale. Now you have 45 degrees included in your calculation, move the miter to cover the difference. For example I needed 52 degrees, so I put 45 degrees precut wood then moved my miter by 7 degrees from the center in opposite direction to cut wood. Insert the wood dowel along cut wood and voila you have a 52 degree cut. 

• For cutting I found it easier to have 2 sets. One with upward angle(left bottom to right top), one with lowered angles (left top to right bottom). 
• While cutting length your miter would be at the center so cutting 8 pieces at once makes sense.
• For cutting angles you need to group by the angle rather than length, so that you can cut multiple pieces without changing the miter setting.

 

Once all the pieces are cut  to precision, I sanded them and stuck them in the pattern using gorilla glue. 

• One key thing to check here is if you are able to close the cabinet with this additional bulk. try building the cabinet and installing. If  they get stuck along the way some where, means length of dowels is slightly higher, you can sand the excess down and it would work perfectly fine :) It is important to check this before painting. 

Paint Selection

Now comes the final part, painting. your color choices will be determined by surrounding furniture, wall color and the end look that you are looking for. I chose whisper white by BEHR for this project. 

     I filled the empty hole for knob insertions with paintable caulk and then sanded it down to blend with rest of the surface. Next step is to fill the gaps between wood with caulk. This gives a much better cohesive look. I did the caulking after first coat of primer and it resulted in extra work for me. Next I sanded the whole cabinet to remove any unevenness created by caulking and primed the surface with Zinser 123 all surface primer. 

• Ensure that you are getting primer between the gaps in the wood and that it is smooth
• Consistency of this primer is slightly runny so it can leave streaks.

After waiting for primer to dry around 30-40 mins, I sanded rough edges or spills and gave it a second coat. Let the primer set for couple of hours.

    Once everything is smooth, its time to paint! 

• Before painting ensure that there is no dust/excess caulk/sanded particles on the cabinet. 
• Be sure to have smooth even strokes. If you drag the brush forcefully across, it will leave streak marks on the cabinet. 
• Use the angled part of the brush to get in between the wood gaps. 

    Once  you are done with painting its time to add hardware! Any center knob would ruin the design so I decided to install these finger pulls from walmart. 

and final result is :

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. 

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