These are mostly fantastic, but the knife rack seems like a pretty dangerous one if you have kids or pets.

I've bought spare parts before from their 'leftovers' section and built my own stuff before, but nothing as cool as that server rack.

I love the allen wrench drill bit. I work at an office supplies store and thats exactly what we do to assemble chairs. Theres a pile of cut up allen wrenches in the back of the store next to a drill and a pair of bolt cutters.

I just use the "Take the Ikea shuttle bus to/from Red Hook" hack and the "Take the Ikea Water Taxi to/from Red Hook" hack.

@dakotad555: It is. It's also dangerous for guests whom you tell to grab something on one of the shelves underneath. I had a home ex teacher who would freak if you put a non-butter knife in a sink. Not only could it ruin wood handles and mess the blade up, but she always said "Fill that sink up with sudsy water, and go reach in to wash the dishes." That rack will also notch and gouge your blades up something awful, ruining a good knife or two.

Ikea tip#1
Use glue when building your Ikea furniture, the piece will last 10 times longer.

I like to use Gorilla glue as it penetrates well into the particle wood as it expands (don't use too much!).

Enjoy.

For the allan wrench drill bit thingy - most socket sets have an allen-key-compatible bit, I used mine with great joy when putting together all of the furniture for a new office.

@dakotad555:

Not much worse than this one!

[www.amazon.com]

These are kind of lame hacks. The ikeahacker blog has way more cool stuff, I'm surprised none of that made it in here.

@Attika:

Watch that stuff if you have pets. Gorilla Glue can kill them if they get into it. It hardens into an indigesible mass and blocks their intestinal tract.

One question- how does it save time to have a bowl built into a counter to catch your waste? It seems like it would be kind of difficult to clean and you could have more easily left everything in a pile on the countertop and wiped it all into a trash bin when you're done. I use an old plastic grocery bag and hang the handles from the bag on either side of a drawer in my kitchen and close the drawer. It is close by and all I have to do is remove it from the drawer and throw it out when I'm done.

If you loved these tips, you should check out [www.instructables.com] I ♥ that site.

We often buy stuff from Ikea, but rarely whole pieces of furniture, just fittings and accessories to build into stuff that fits our rather small house.
My daughter's room has the whole wall as a rack for their plastic boxes, but their own racks were far too expensive and anyway, it needed to be climable. Since six year olds will climb bookshelves and storage to reach what they want I made handholds. The whole thing is glued to the floor, wall and ceiling and has had half a dozen small kids gibboning off it without problems.

yeah my photo made it! ReadyMade magazine usually has some cool IKEA hacks too.

@Atticka:

That's fine if its not too big and you aren't planning on moving it anytime soon... I've had to take apart and re-combine my wife's desk probably 4 times in the last 3 years.