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Making a BILLY room for our home office

BILLY bookcases are awesome as walls for a temporary room.

Working from home is becoming a reality for more and more people. But not everyone has the luxury of a dedicated room for a home office.

In Carolina‘s case, they carved out a spot in their living room to fit in a work space.

To create the faux walls for the room, they chose the BILLY corner unit. The genius bit was using it inverted.

IKEA bookshelves corner unit

BILLY bookcase corner unit | IKEA.com

Here is their living room before creating the BILLY room.

before

Related: Making a PAX room in the living room

IKEA items used:
  • 80cm wide BILLY bookcase x 3
  • 40cm wide BILLY bookcase x 1
  • 80cm wide height extension unit x 3
  • 40cm wide height extension unit x 1
  • OXBERG doors x 7
Other materials:
  • MDF
  • Wall paper
  • Knobs
  • Trim and moulding
BILLY room

What they did was to assemble the BILLY bookcases and set them in place. They were positioned to face out, with the backs creating the walls of the office space.

For light and ventilation, they trimmed the thin boards for the back of the BILLY bookcases to make a “window” at the top. The extension units were assembled without the backer board.

View the hack process video below:

Related: How to make a BILLY bookcase secret door

They also left a gap in the first 80cm bookshelf to create a nook for the printer and storage. This is accessible from the work area.

For a flat wall, they closed up the back of the BILLY bookcases with MDF boards and wallpapered them.

Next, they added trim to all the exposed edges and moulding at the top. Baseboards completed the built-in look.

At the front, the corner sections were also closed up with MDF and trimmed out.

And the faux room “walls” are done.

BILLY room divider home office

This is how it looks from inside the home office.

BILLY room divider home office

Final touch was to stick on LOTS mirrors to the back of the BILLY bookshelves for a light airy feel.

Follow Carolina on @lgh18

The post Making a BILLY room for our home office appeared first on IKEA Hackers.

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