This IKEA Hack Is So Good, a DIYer Did It 4 Times

There are some design details and DIY projects so good that you have to employ them twice — or even three or four times throughout a home. Take this paint color one DIYer swears by, this fabric that appears six times in one living room, or this $230 DIY project that improves every room, for example. The DIYers liked the look so much, they had to repeat the projects — and in some cases, they didn’t even need new materials each time. (Talk about bang for your buck!)

For DIYer and content creator Rachel Martino, the home project worth repeating over and over is the IKEA “built-in” arched bookcase. Usually the go-to IKEA product to hack built-in bookshelves is the IKEA BILLY; people combine the 31 1/2-inch-wide bookcase and the narrower 15 3/4-inch-wide bookcase to offer a budget-friendly lookalike to luxe custom carpentry. 

Many DIYers have become so good at adding trim, hardware, and paint to the bookcases that you’d hardly recognize the IKEA of it all, and that rings true for Rachel — although she actually started with an IKEA HAVSTA hack. 

“I started with what I call my OG pink bookshelves,” she says. She’s since moved, but this is the loft apartment project that started it all (and, because the project was renter-friendly, she actually brought the shelving with her to her next place and put it in her current home.

She created three arch-shaped shelves with HAVSTA bases, plywood for the arches, trim that follows the curve around the arches, and a peachy pink paint. Rachel says on Instagram that plywood is your built-in bookcase BFF because it can help you space your shelves out according to the width of the room and add other details like trim or sconces in between, if you want.

“As I became more comfortable with transforming IKEA pieces, I created a second set of hot-pink bookshelves entirely from IKEA pieces,” Rachel says; this project took place in Rachel’s Bushwick loft that she uses as a photo studio. She used her “trusty HAVSTA bases again,” but this time she went with BILLY bookcases and BILLY extenders for a more long-and-lean look. Her total IKEA cost was $1,069, and again she added her plywood arch plus trim detail (this time just crown molding at the top). The hot-pink paint color is Behr’s Beauty Queen.

Next, Rachel did the same concept in her own living room to create a full L-shape arched bookshelf built-in on the back two walls of her living room. (Count them — that’s three times doing this DIY!) “We mapped it out, measured, and we realized we could use six HAVSTA cabinets, six BILLY bookcases, and six BILLY extensions,” Rachel says on Instagram. “For the color, I decided on Backdrop’s Saturday on Sunday, which is the most gorgeous blue-gray.” 

Having mastered the art of the BILLY hack at that point, she then decided to create more of a speakeasy vibe. “I really wanted to elevate the idea of the arched bookshelf, and when the opportunity came to design a working event space, I took my IKEA hack to the next level with a hidden bar bookshelf,” Rachel says. “By using LOMMARP pieces as the base and adding casters behind toe kicks, the base of these soft pink bookshelves can pull out to become a full working bar.” She went back to her signature pink here: Behr’s Bridal Bouquet.

For more BILLY bookshelf hack inspiration, check out this studio apartment and this reading corner.