DIY Industrial TV Stand IKEA Hack (Step by Step)

8 min readApr 1, 2015

Disclaimer: This guide only provides tips. Use them at your own risk with your best judgment. Work in a well ventilated room or outside. Wear gloves and a mask, and follow manufacturer safety directions (insert non-liability clause somewhere).

Inspiration: Wisteria Lane pine console ($1,099) and SimplySKJ Ikea side table hack.

Background: My only achievement until now: mounting curtain rods with anchors on a dry wall. They fell apart in two weeks (thanks, cats). But with YouTube as a teacher and a few helpful tips, this DIY project didn't turn into a nightmare.

Duration: About 4 half days.

Cost: around $220 total. Itemized:

Ikea BESTÅ TV stand ($79, might be discontinued soon)
3 pine boards ($15)
4 metal casters from MaterialFlow.com ($56)
25 Hammered decorative clavos nails from Genuine Texas Brand ($20)
8 butt-hinges from Anawalt True Value ($16)
4 brass knobs from Anawalt True ($12)
Varathane wood conditioner, Traditional cherry stain and polyurethane ($15 for the 3. I bought a quart but a half pint would have been plenty enough)
Rustoleum metallic spray ($6 at the hardware store, more expensive online)
Wood glue ($5)

Some lesson learned the hard way:

Protect the floor with thick rag/sheet. Stain and paint will stick to cheap plastic wrap, then make holes and color your balcony in Traditional Cherry.
When you spray paint metal pieces, put everything on non-stick paper to avoid tears once it is dry and some Ikea plastic blue bag is glued to it.
Soak brushes in mineral spirit after you’re done if you ever want to use them again.
Temperature affects drying time (especially with cooler evenings)

A few thoughts: I now understand why my dad loved to spend so much time at the hardware store. And I’ve stopped making fun of my girlfriend Pinterest habit. I used to call everything “that thingy” but I’ve learned many new words now (English as a second language here) like “casters” and “washers” and “mortise” and “clavos”. Patience is the most important skill. You can’t rush the drying process. Have a good book nearby (Leviathan Wakes/The Expanse was pretty fun, can’t wait to see Syfy adaptation).

1. Get the main structure

Ikea BESTÅ TV Stand works pretty well. Positive side: it is surprisingly sturdy. Negative side: it is surprisingly sturdy. Drilling and screwing is a pain.

2. Have your local lumber/hardware store cut the wood (it’s free)

Math quiz: 47" wide top and 5" boards = a headache, or 9 boards + a sad 2" orphan. Metric system to the rescue: 120 cm, or 10, 12cm, boards.

Because a marginal error repeated 10 times can put you off by a lot, it helps to bring the furniture top with you at the store. Rodney at Anawalt True Value Lumber in North Hollywood was a life savior. He cut 2 “test boards” and moved them across the surface, one over the other and so on. We were off by 1 extra cm. He scrapped a hair on the template, repeated the operation: perfect fit. He then cut all the other boards, plus an 11th one “just in case”.

3. Experiment with wood stain to check the final color to avoid a disaster

I thought I’d like dark cherry. It turned out almost purple on my extra board. “Traditional Cherry” it is. A more golden stain or dark walnut could have been very nice too, just a matter of taste. Here is the repeated process:

Sand the wood in the direction of the grain (medium 120 grit) to remove any paint or scratches.
Sand the wood (fine 220 grit) to bring out the grain.
Vacuum all the dust.
Wipe a damp sponge or lent-free rag, let dry a few minutes.
Apply wood conditioner (a rag seems to work better than a brush) so the pine can later absorb stain more evenly.
Let dry for about 30 min.
Apply wood stain in excess. The longer you wait before wiping it off, the darker it gets. 10 Minutes was pretty good.
Let dry a couple hours.
Repeat for a darker color if desired.

4. Protect it with polyurethane

Sand very gently (fine 220 grit or higher) the boards to remove any particles/dust caught in the dry stain, or skip this step if you’re scared of taking off some color.
Apply a coat of polyurethane (an oil-base apparently gives it a richer tone but takes longer to dry than a water-base one).
Let dry 4 hours for oil-based, 2 hours for water-based. It might take longer (I didn’t wait quite long enough, it was still sticky).
Sand lightly, vacuum, wash.
Apply a second layer of poly.
If you like the result, keep it. It was too glossy/shiny for my tastes (I picked semi-gloss, I would probably have liked flat better), So I lightly sanded it later to get a more “natural” look.
If it has some white washed/out residues, wipe the board with a rag damp with mineral spirit.

5. Glue the boards to the top

Watch that very informative video from carpenter Svinde Hunden. Vikings know best: “If glue doesn’t ooze everywhere, you didn’t put enough glue; if you don’t have caluses by the end of the day, you didn’t tighten the clamps hard enough”.

Apparently, the smoother it is, the better it sticks, so no sanding but wipe everything beforehand. Steps to follow:

Generously apply wood glue on the back of all the boards.
Generously apply glue to the furniture top.
Don’t do anything for 5 minutes to start the chemical process.
Put 1 board in place, move it back and forth to spread the glue.
Tighten with clamps (put something between the board and the clamps, like a magazine, so you don’t leave marks on the wood). Supposedly leave it for 30 minutes, but 5–10 minutes was plenty for that scenario.
Repeat 10 times.
Chase cat #1 off the balcony.

6. Repeat the same process with the doors

Even better: do the staining at the same time as the top boards. I didn’t and it gets very hard to obtain exactly the same color. About the doors:

I chose 2x 2 doors, as 2 single big doors had a very big opening radius.
Size: the dimensions of each opening minus 0.5cm on top and on the side to provide a .25cm margin of error everywhere when installing the hinges.
If the flip side is dirty with stain, you can just paint it.

7. Spray paint the casters and hinges

I couldn’t find nice ornamental hinges narrow enough for the furniture, so I got basic “home depot” style ones and played with Rust Oleum Metallic Spray. Dark Bronze was very dark, it got better mixed with Copper.
Spray from afar, 10+ inch, with light presses. It can quickly look, well, “painted”, with a loss of texture. Sanding can help make it more distressed.
There are some solutions online involving muriatic acid to add a nice patina of rust. Maybe another time.

8. Screw the casters to the bottom

Flip the furniture upside down.
If you can, drill all the way through and tighten it with bolts.
I couldn’t (poor quality drill) so I screwed them with sheer metal sturdy screws and some washers. I can now sit on the furniture.

9. Screw the butt hinges (on the door first, then frame)

On the floor, put half of the hinge flat on the door surface and bend the other half 90° against the edge for a nice fit.
Screw it but not super tight in case some adjustments are needed later.
Do the same for the bottom hinge
Flip the furniture on its back — so you work horizontally — install the door like it would be in a “closed” position. Put a stack of books under it so it’s perfectly horizontal. Screw the hinge to the furniture.
Repeat for the other door.
If you worked well, they close nicely. If needed, adjust the hinge/door a bit until they do.
Mount a little magnet latch on the furniture and screw 2 pieces of metal on the inside corner of each door. Voilà.

10. Add the ornaments and knobs

I tried to measure an equal distance for each of them and failed to create a very straight line. A plumb bob vertically would probably have helped, or at least a string.
Drilling exactly straight through (for the knobs) without a drill guide is hard. You can use a CD hole as a substitute as or some thick book’s edge and try to drill parallel to it. The holes were a bit at an angle but screwing the knob tight ended up flat enough.