Mashing Up IKEA Furniture To Build A Drawing Board (or Craft Table)

Snap… Crunch… Ouch… the three sounds that accompanied the collapse of my last Drawing Board (or table.) I only owned the Craft Store ‘Drawing station’  less than three months and already the hinges at the front had snapped out of the thin board, because they simply could not bear the weight of the board tilt. I had to find a better more durable solution, oddly enough IKEA had the answer. 

I am not a shill for IKEA, but I do like the store and their life-style solutions to storage and opening up practical space. I had also lived in Sweden for a year, so it caters to my developed Scandinavian palate.

You Will Need

IKEA does not sell a drawing board, so you have to mash-up a couple of pieces, and go to a hardware store, to build your board you will need;

2x Finnvard – adjustable height trestles
1x 4ft Medium Linnmon – white table top (other colors available but they cost $5 more)
1x Box of Velcro (local hardware store located next to the furniture gliders)
1x Aluminum Door Threshold (local hardware store)

Build It

Follow your IKEA instructions (don’t worry the trestles are easy) and build the Finnvard units, should take you about 20 minutes for both pieces. Now take the Velcro and cut lengths. and stick the hooks onto the Finnvard trestle tops. Match up these lengths onto your Linnmon Table top, stick the eyes to your board, then put them together.

Now cut a length of Velcro to put on the back of  your door threshold, stick the hooks to the back of the threshold, and the eyes to bottom of the board. This will act as your pen catch, stopping any pencil or drawing material roll offs.

You will notice the Velcro makes for an easy and secure join, and allows you to adjust your table-top to see match your comfort level. The Finnvard adjustable trestle tops allow you to angle your board to your drawing level. The entire Drawing board is more sturdy and load bearing, so unexpected snaps will be a thing of the past.

My Set Up

My set up is extended beyond just the drawing board, my IKEA mash-up also contains;

1x 3ft Linnmon small table top w/legs (for a return to put my laptop on)
1x Jules chair w/swivel base (the Alrik chair is a good cheaper alternative)
1x Helmer six drawer stack (wide enough to put 9×12 drawing pads in)
1x Tertial Work Lamp

My Cost

While I owned the Jules, Tertial and Small Linnmon table from my previous setup with the Craft store drawing board. The Helmer was a welcome new addition to the mix allowing me to store 90% of my art materials in one place.

The total cost of my set-up is $200, about $50 more than the average craft store table. It gives me a much more durable base to create on – which to me is worth the investment. Go out and create your own IKEA Furniture Mash-up and stop the crunch from happening to you.