8 Luxury Ikea Hacks to Upgrade Your Home on a Budget
Are you wondering if there are luxury Ikea hacks so you can use Ikea in luxury homes? There are so many hacks that you can do that will bring that sense of luxury to your space. I'm going to show you that even in my very large, luxurious home, I have used Ikea, and I've done my hacks.
We're going to look at what I've done and some tips and tricks on things that I use.
Luxury Ikea Hacks
1. KALLAX System
I have the Kallax system behind me. I think I've used KALLAX in probably most of my projects in some capacity.
They work beautifully with luxury antique pieces and antique books. In our office, you see, I started with a traditional piece.
Then, I backed it with KALLAX pieces. I did a configuration.
What I did here in terms of a hack was simple; I changed the knobs and left out some of the areas where there should have been a shelf to give me these more display areas.
I brought in little puck lights and added them to the spaces where I'm showcasing some of our accessories from our shop page. So that's a simple hack.
2. File Drawer
Now, here we see this fabulous file drawer from IKEA.
I love that this piece doesn't allow you to open another drawer until the first one's closed, so you don't have tipping.
I had this beautiful Caesarstone waterfall top made for it.
This is something you usually see in kitchens, but I decided to bring it here to keep my printer so that I could join two units together and have them look like one cohesive piece.
3. Floating Shelves
I think these are some of the most famous pieces for IKEA.
So here I use them again to display some pieces from our shop page.
Think outside the box. I mounted this KALLAX system much higher, so it's floating on the wall. I did that because I wanted to continue the line from behind me, right across the room, and I wanted to use that additional space on that wall for extra storage. So that's a great trick, especially for small spaces.
4. Picture Shelves
I've used these fabulous picture shelves as we move around the room. Now, this is so inexpensive from IKEA.
They are meant for leaning pictures. This would make a fabulous addition to a kitchen to stack your platters and plates if you've got just a shallow area of space.
5. EKET
Another one of the pieces I use most often in my projects is this EKET, which is available in quite a few configurations.
It's meant to be a floating shelf, but you can buy these legs that I have on mine.
I spray-painted it gold to get the look that I wanted. In nurseries especially, I almost always use the EKET system. It's available in four colors, but IKEA is so easily painted to change the look.
There are two ways to paint your IKEA pieces. One is to get an excellent high-adhesion primer and then use a pearl finish paint. That requires a little light sanding before you put your primer, and then you will sand in between layers. An easier way to paint is by using chalk paint. It will go straight on your IKEA piece and give you incredible adhesion.
It's a fabulous way to change the look and get a painted furniture piece instead of laminate.
6. VITTSJÖ
This is a unit I have been using for years and years, but very rarely am I using it the way it comes in black. This is where the simplest hack you can do is with a can of spray paint.
The VITTSJÖ comes in various configurations in the series, but my favorite is the shelving units.
There's a low version and a high version. I spray-painted the legs in a bronze color. Then I used one of IKEA's desks, and I also took the same can of spray paint and spray painted out the legs to make them cohesive.
I brought in an extremely traditional, very high-end chair to use as a desk chair to amp up this room's luxury volume.
This project is one of our staging projects, and we've used the taller of the VITTSJÖ series.
Depending on the project, we bring these in black and gold.
7. Malm Dresser
What I love is all the options on how to hack Malm dressers now.
Starting from the simplest hack, which is changing the knobs to a little more involved painting with either chalk paint or the primer and pearl finish paint technique or by adding these fabulous contact papers you can find online.
One of the new trends out there is to add fluting.
There's a product called Pole Wrap, a thin piece of wrap made of wood that you can cut and attach to the front of your mom pieces or many of the other pieces that Ikea uses, and it completely transforms the look.
When looking at the dressers, everybody's first inclination is to think of using those dressers in a bedroom. Please think outside the box. This makes a great space or piece to put in other spaces.
If you have a larger living room or family room and are looking for storage, these will make great side tables.
8. BILLY Pieces
These look fabulous stacked in multiples, as you saw me do with the file drawers, and used in a hallway for a great storage solution.
The most famous, I think, of all the Ikea pieces is the BILLY, and there are so many ways to revitalize that BILLY and use it so it looks modern and luxurious.
There are doors that you order and then attach to your BILLY bookcase.
There are also hacks where you can bring in the rattan and switch out the glass panel on a BILLY door to the rattan to give you a more modern look.
Adding base, columns, and crown molding completely transforms this look and gives you a built-in bookshelf look without the high-end custom millwork price.
These are just a few of my favorite pieces to hack.
Luxury Ikea hacks
I encourage you to search luxury Ikea hacks on Instagram, TikTok, and Google. Get inspired by how all these creators are transforming their Ikea pieces and bringing luxury to their homes. Let us know in the comments how you make your Ikea pieces look like luxury items.
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