[Music] hi my name is drew scott of lone fox and i would describe my style as attainable diy and eclectic my name is leonard bessemer i'm a furniture designer and i describe my style as sculptural animated and indulgent so what do you think when you found out you have to hack an ikea bookcase i was honestly excited first of all because the billy popped in my head and i've worked with the billy bookcase in the past so i was pretty stoked to do another project with it what i'm trying to accomplish with this challenge is i'm trying to make an ikea bookshelf into my bookshelf you know give it a life of its own so when you're looking at it you kind of have a little more reverence for it we are going to make this very budget-friendly so that you guys can recreate it i always keep it very very simple i personally only own like four power tools but we are gonna make it work and i'm really excited to get started on this bookcase i kind of wanted to just get rid of the whole profile so i'm almost using it for materials solely and turn it into something almost completely different so my design for this piece definitely has like a slight art deco retro flare to it which i love i think the bottom base of this piece is going to be really unique and then the rounded edges is just going to add like a nice movement to the piece and the shape's just gonna be really interesting in the end when i'm designing furniture i always take in consideration where it's going who it's going to i think it's kind of an obligation of a designer to do that but then i also think about the actual like visual presence and sculptural quality of the piece and that's also very important to me we are in the car headed to home depot i need to pick up some supplies for the project thankfully the list is actually pretty minimal so let's get to shopping [Music] so i scoured la looking for a billy bookcase and actually bought a second bookcase a used one that was really beat up and used that to formulate my design and create a template for the final bookcase i took the old bookcase i cut away the pieces i wanted to cut it away and formulated it into a shape that i liked that worked for me from there i take that template and i attach that to the new piece and using a flush trim bit on the router cut out another duplicate of it basically it has a bearing on it that will ride along this edge and it'll cut the exact same shape and there's our final piece this is a way that you can replicate something like if you wanted to go into production and create 10 of these i could do that but realistically you could really just do this with a jigsaw cut out the shape you want give it a little sanding and it's ready to go so step one of this project we are going to be creating the structure which is going to be on the side of our bookcase there i took a piece of paper and i drew out a ten and three quarter inch circle on that piece of paper fold it in half cut it along the line and that was going to be our template that's going to be transferred to our plywood for the cut of the structure so my biggest challenge is going to be cutting out these half circle shapes perfectly because the only half circle shapes i've ever cut out are the ones behind me in this ikea piece i also did it worked out you know but these are a little bit smaller i don't have too much jigsaw experience but we are gonna make this work and i'm certain that it's gonna work are you certain i'm certain it's gonna work [Music] so i really wanted to reinforce this new bookcase and i did that by using the domino connect system by festool [Music] now i can hold an elephant so i ended up using some l brackets to mount our shape to the bookcase we're now going to add the pull wrap to this side so i recently found out about this product called pull wrap which is essentially like slotted wood that you can wrap around a basement pole to make it a little bit more interesting but we're going to be using it to kind of fabricate the sides of our bookcase and give it a slotted finish [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's like we could play the drums like there's different sounds [Music] this nail gun is the best you just pull the trigger and the nail just goes so i've now cut out my shape only i've exposed the particle board that all ikm furniture is made from and you can't really paint that so i need to basically cover that and to do that i'm going to use edge banding and it has like a hot glue on the back of it so you can basically just heat it up and stick it onto the edge and then it'll stay forever and you can then paint it pretty much everything in your kitchen is a piece of plywood with an edge band that covers it up it's almost just like paper that glues on and that just creates a barrier and a nice substrate that i can actually apply a finish to so i went ahead and removed the previous backing and then added the pull wrap in the back which i personally think also enhances the structure of the piece but it also adds a really great design element when you look at the bookcase from head-on ikea makes their furniture to pack into a small box so the back has to be folded up into a piece and they also want to make it as light as possible of course the back is very important structurally so i'm going to widen the back groove for a different material it's actually just a piece of masonite a little stronger a little more sturdy [Music] voila this is exactly what i was picturing i think once we do paint it though it's going to look literally perfect so for painting the biggest challenge is dealing with the pre-finished ikea surface your best friend is going to be shellac ikea furniture traditionally has that kind of like glossy laminate finish so a great way that you don't have to sand and prime is actually using a shellac primer it just goes right over top dries down and you're ready to paint shellac is a universal sealer you can kind of paint it over anything and you can kind of paint anything on top of it for the most part don't quote me on that but it's basically a wax made from beetles or beetle shells and it's dissolved in alcohol so it's quite natural they use it on a lot of children's toys because it's very safe and that'll create a barrier that i can safely apply whatever finish i want on top of that [Music] once i finish painting i want to let it dry for a little bit and then i just put it back together moment of truth [Music] so this is the new back that i made it's not super fancier just a little bit thicker a little more solid no creases yeah looks pretty good so what do you say you guys want to see a shelf [Music] and this is the leonard i have been waiting to see the project up oh i'm very impressed and i didn't see that coming um i mean it's just like simple but unexpected really clean lines thank you nice shape like gives it some volume it says that feeling where you make something you see someone else and you're like a little envious of what they did i love how like the actual like slats are still there and give it that texture and kind of like bumps it up a level i'm amazed with what you're able to do with just a little bit of imagination and a little bit of time and you can kind of make it happen and has ikea or cb2 contacted you about producing this you know not yet no one's really seen it yet but we can we can have talks first of all i don't even know how you constructed it or like cut the sides like that and then put it back together because that is mind-boggling to me it looks like a puzzle originally i just wanted to like take the face of it and give it like some angle like give it a a form like it's like almost like a living thing and then when i was doing that i was kind of like i didn't like how the profile was still just a square yeah you know and you're like oh i'm like i'm gonna put these little ears on it it was like in the process yeah you're in the middle of it and that's when the actual good ideas come up i think that's my favorite part actually is how it's not like a perfect squared off top because that's what you always expect from like the ikea billy bookcase this is so so unique i've never seen anything like this so i feel like that's just such a cool quality about a lot of your work my goal with all furniture is that like i want it to be when you walk in someone goes oh wow what's that and to walk in like when it's you and you can look at something and be like every time you see it you get that like kind of warm fuzzy feeling of being like oh i love it whether it's because it's something you bought that was a really special find or custom or it's something you made yourself well leonard just so you know i'm going to be showing up very soon to use this workshop or have you teach me how to use it you have an open invitation drill bye see you later drew and maybe next time they'll give us an extra day or two to finish these projects i will not disagree with you on that [Music] you
