a cheaper way to build IKEA built-ins

I love me a good IKEA hack.

Especially this one that Centsational Girl did, turning the famous Billy bookcase into seamless built-ins.  

We knew we needed a lot of storage for our playroom, but we also knew that it wouldn't be a playroom forever so we wanted something that could grow as our needs for the space changed. 

Enter the IKEA Billy Bookcase hack!

Depending on your wall size the price for this hack can range, but lets assume you need 4 bookshelves. That comes out to around $240, plus the cost of molding, wood to frame the shelves etc. 

So around $300 is probably a safe estimate.

$300 is a great price for custom-ish built-ins, but $300 is still a large chunk of change. 

We did our built-ins for a total of about $200. That included 3 full size Billy's and 2 Billy DVD shelves. This arrangement was the best way for us to utilize the wall space. 

  

The total cost would have been around $260 for the shelves alone, plus an additional $70ish for wood, molding etc, totaling around $330. 

Here's what we did to save some $$$.

Craigslist. 

No, really that's it! 

We originally went to IKEA, bought everything new and brought it home. 

That evening, I had a thought, I wonder if Craigslist has any IKEA bookshelves on it....?

And it totally did!! 

We scored 2 of the larger shelves for $30 total. 

There was nothing wrong with them other than a little dust and plus they were already assembled. 

Woot! Woot!

We returned the brand new shelves and started building the built-ins. 

Because we DIY a lot we did have most of the wood already on hand for the framing, but I've looked on Craigslist multiple times and found scrap wood, pretty much for free. 

So. If you want IKEA built-ins, check Craigslist first!! 

If I had thought ahead, I'm pretty sure we could have gotten a least one more shelving unit of off Craigslist. But I was wanting to get the project done, so I didn't want to wait around. :)

So there you go. Craigslist saves the day!