Those are amazing. Too bad there isn't really a good tutorial on how to implement that. They obviously raised them a little and added moulding to the left, top, and bottom but how would you go about doing that?

The bookcases are $80 each, the doors are $50 each (so $100 for the set). But the Billy bookcases aren't as tall as they are in the room, so did they cut another Billy and set them on top?

Billy bookcases do come with extensions that can extend the height...by two shelves, I think.

Which explains why the doors don't go to the top. I kind of wish they would have left the doors off...

This is a great example of how to make IKEA not look like IKEA.

Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of the doors only covering part of the bookcase.

I agree, I'm not a fan of the doors, but this is spectacular. You really can't tell it's IKEA.

If you have real books, it's more important to protect the books with doors than it is to leave the doors off for the sake of design. I have almost as many books and have been considering floor to ceiling shelving! Nice work.

I think you can buy doors for those top shelves; they may have decided not to. Although I wonder if the top parts are Billy bookcases or part that was built in. I have the Billy bookcases with the additional top parts and I don't think they go as high as the ones in the picture.

Yes, very un-IKEA looking and I like it! Definitely considering doing the same, but with DIY doors.

I agree with ANDREASANTOS. Great to see Ikea without the ikeaness.
Only I am afraid that once the shelves start sagging, it will will scream Billy.

I guess if the shelves start sagging, you could just replace the shelves. The Billy line is not the most durable but at least the frame stays pretty stable. It's the shelves that don't. I'd say you could replace the shelves with real wood, but then why would you buy the Billy line in the first place? Just buy real wood bookshelves if you're going halfway.

The makeover in the linked post is phenomenal. I can't imagine walking into the house in its before state and having the vision (or, hell, the energy!) to realize what it could look like when refinished. The home now is just gorgeous (especially the staircase! it was breathtaking!).

I heard the owner of this house talk about the renovation on the local NPR affiliate (WYPR). They poured their hearts and soul into this house!!

This is so nice, makes me reconsider the direction i was going with all e-books on my ipad. how will I decorate and create a sophisticated house like this?

Looks fabulous! (and I have had a wall of Billy bookshelves with solid doors across the bottom for many years that look just as great!)

If the Billy shelves sag over time, can't they just be flipped over, instead of having to replace them? I have always dreamed of a completely book-lined room, but the cost has always been out of reach.

I don't mind the doors not going to the top. It is good to have the doors to protect the best books, and they're so minimal that they kind of fade into the shelves.

Here's a question...can those shelves support a ladder leaning against them for when you need to climb up to reach the high shelves?

We did the same thing with white Billy bookcases - bought the extension to make them ceiling heigh, trimmed than out and then painted the trim to match the bookcases. Not too difficult. However, having those glorious leather-bound sets of books to showcase certainly make the difference!

This looks fantastic! I actually have these bookcases and I love them. Mine have been with me for 20 years and have lived in 3 apartments and a house. If I want to build a library with them, it's nice to know I can just purchase more and add on. The shelves on my Billies have been sturdy all these years, but I have had the experience of returning to purchase other products again after a few years and finding the more recent versions to be of poorer quality, so I hope that's not the case with these.

I spend a few hours checking out the This Old House website and this couple did an amazing job! Kudos to them!
Jenny from Little Green Notebook did a post on her site and Design Sponge about the BILLY bookcases she DIY'ed into a cool arched floor to ceiling book case-it's pretty rad! Check it out here: http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2011/08/diy-arched-bookshelves.html

<a>http://littlegreennotebook.blogspot.com/2011/08/diy-arched-bookshelves.html
Ooops!

From the point of view of someone who has a lot of books, these bookshelves look great. But it makes me kind of sick to think of all that bare wasted space around the books. Unless you plan to have double rows, Billy shelves are just too deep. The shelves are also way too far apart. Most books are no higher than ten inches, more than that and they are oversized (I don't know what the people have here, sets of law text books? Encyclopedias?)

But as I said, they look great. The warm colors are marvelous. I especially like the red accent wall with the wood. So cheerful. I would like to do that to our library.

We have a wall of Billy bookshelves assembled for about six years and moved. We didn't loose a single bookshelf, upper shelf, or any of the four glass doors. We bought a few more, reconfigured them, and they are going strong. The only thing we've learned over time is that you should plan for outlets so you don't loose them. We just cut a hole out of the back panel at a non-critical point.

These look great. Thank you for this post.

Ugh, fraternities.

http://www.ikeahackers.net/ has a ton of posts about turning the Billy into a built-in. In fact, a Billy built-in project was the hack of the year last year.

I agree that the Billy is too deep (I freecycled my last one for that very reason); however, except for one bracing shelf, the shelf placement is entirely up to the user and can be as close or far apart as you like.

I'm pretty sure some of the Billy bookcases my parents have are over twenty years old and loaded with very heavy books and there is no noticeable sagging.

@pi
Ikea has a ladder for this purpose, so yes. I don't know if the ladder they have is fine, though, since only the frame is for leaning on: "The ladder can only rest on the top panel."

I've had my Billys for over 20 years, changed the shelf configuration a zillion times, even fell off a ladder through the back of one (yay, duct tape) and never had a single shelf begin to sag.

Wow! really well done. I routinely flip ikea bookcase shelves to prevent sag... working out well so far.

@Pi the high shelves actually aren't really that high. We have the exact same setup (but in the black brown color), including the extension shelves. I need to stand on an apple box to reach the top shelf, but my boyfriend can access it just fine (he's 5'10").

For those who were wondering about the glass doors, they actually do offer them for the extension shelves and look quite nice. We also opted against them to save money, but can always add on later.

We really appreciate the glass to protect our treasured DVDs and books.

PS, I've assembled a lot of IKEA furniture in my time and these were by far the most annoying (specifically, adding the doors).

Also, they should definitely be anchored to the wall. Once we added the glass to the front of our bookcases, they naturally started tipping forward, since all the weight was at the front of the piece (the backing is the standard traditional IKEA flimsy, weightless piece).

I once used Ikea's calculator to find out how much it would cost to outfit a similar bookcase wall in my living room, and in fact it costs about the same for a large space as having a carpenter custom-make built-in shelving. The doors and the high ceilings really make things add up, and billy is still basically shoddy material with those annoying little holes inside the cases. In my opinion, not really worth it...

Billie is nice and cheap but the biggest problem is also shown in this picture: they bend! A little weight and the problems is evident. After time this problem becomes bigger.
Beautiful modification but I hate bending of the shelves.