Making the ultimate built-in action figure display case

Action figure display case from stock IKEA BILLY bookshelves

Since I’ve moved to a new place I wanted to make an ultimate nerd room/ guest room/ home office.

I am an action figure collector, so I have plenty of action figures to be displayed.

At the beginning of this hack I had some IKEA BILLY cabinets standing in the room to store my collection. But they looked too bulky and not aesthetically pleasing.

Before – BILLY bookshelves lined the walls

Also the room I was working with wasn’t very big and I wasn’t able to place a full sized bed for my guests. 

One day I was browsing through IKEA Hackers and I was inspired by BILLY built in hacks. So I started to plan my own.

IKEA items used: 

• IKEA BILLY bookshelves 
• MORLIDEN doors

Other materials and tools: 

• Drywalls
• Metal framing for drywalls
• Wood framing
• Kitchen metal profile
• Partition wall clay bricks

Built-in action figure display case hack 

The main idea was to keep my BILLY display cabinets and to have a clearance beneath to place a full-sized bed for guests.

And at the same time I needed to have an ability to open the glass cabinet doors for cleaning.

Also I wanted my room to look more like a square. So I started to search for the solution. 

First idea was to use a wood frame to raise the cabinets to 25 inches. But then I realized that the whole setup weighs too much and I wasn’t confident that it won’t fall down someday.

I was driving around local construction shops when I found huge bricks for partition walls exactly in my dimensions. So I bought 4 of them and brought them home. 

I removed floors under my cabinet area. I secured the bookshelves to the walls behind with metal brackets.

And then connected the BILLYs with some screws between them.

When I was absolutely sure that the whole setup won’t fall, I started to make a metal frame around cabinets to place dry walls over them

Unfortunately at the very top I wasn’t able to find proper sized metal frame, so I decided to use wood.

After that I only had to add dry walls and cover the holes. 

Then came the worst part of the job (for me) — sanding the whole thing before the paint job.

After cutting the floors under my new cabinet setup and painting the walls I ended up with this result.

I was pretty happy how it turned out because it was my first experience making dry walls.

Then, I bought some black kitchen aluminium profiles to hide gaps between the bookshelves and the drywall. I also covered up the gap between the ceiling and bookshelves with a molding profile.  

And here is the final result!

And with all my action figures and paraphernalia displayed.

I’m pretty happy how it turned out at the end.

Now I can place a full-sized bed below my action figure display case for my guests. But I will keep it for the next hack with the IKEA FLEKKE bed. (Stay tuned. It’s coming soon.)

Looking back, would you have done it differently?

Well, actually I’m very happy how it turned out. The only thing I would do differently would be to hide a cable for LED lights inside the wall. Now it is visible in the left corner.

Unfortunately, my house is made of bricks, so to do that I would need to chisel down the brick walls to hide a cable inside it.

I had no time and my electrician was working in Germany for the upcoming month, so I did it this way. But it gonna be hidden by the bed so I am not really bothered by this anyways. 

Hope you enjoyed this hack inspired by IKEA Hackers.

~ by Asyle

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