CD Rack

Let me preface this entry by saying, “I hate IKEA.” There store is a veritable maze of which only people of the lemming persuasion are likely to enjoy.

So about 4 months ago I went to IKEA for the first time with Heather. I was sick when we went with some sort of stomach thing so that just added to the agony of the experience. And let me tell you when your body says, “You need to go to the bathroom—now!” You don’t want to be in the maze that is IKEA.

Twice.

Anyway, most of their furniture is cheaply made particle/mdf board with really cool design. If you get it wet it will likely turn into a giant expandable dinosaur (you know the kind—just add water). But they do have a couple of things in their store I like.

1. The lighting department.
2. The media storage.

Now they had these 15″ modular CD racks that looked like this:

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There was this cool display with about 6 of these mounted to a wall with mini spotlights attached to the top. When I went to get some they had only two in stock. Those of you, who know my CD collection, know that I would need more than two. So the second time I went to IKEA I was sure to find them, right? Nope. So I began calling. I called about 2 times a month for a little over three months. FINALLY THEY CAME IN!

So last Saturday I got my tools together. This included the CD Racks, 1×4 poplar wood, screws, laser level and stud-finder necessary to begin my project:

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THE WALL O’ CDs

Keeping the demo room at IKEA in mind, I attempted to duplicate it—on a slightly larger scale. So here’s what I did:

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I used my laser level to line up my studs and the poplar lengths I had bought.

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Then I used my stud-finder, lined up the poplar and mounted it to the wall with screws.

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Then I lined up the next 3 pieces of poplar and started mounting the brackets with smaller screws in the corners.

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This turned out to be problematic, as I did not plan very well. You see, there was not enough room at either end to mount the last set of CD Racks.

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However, I put enough planning in that I would be able to save myself. So it was off to Home Depot for some 1x3s to finish it off. I returned quickly, finished getting the CD Racks mounted and tested it with a CD. 😉 Phew! It held the weight.

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Then I mounted the mini-spots and tested the rack with more actual CDs.

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Whew! Still held up under the pressure!

The end result:

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Pretty cool, huh?

I’ll build one for you too. But I’ll probably have to charge $1000 with the amount of labor I would need to charge to make up for it.