[jigsaw grunting]
[wood cutter saw grunting]
[hammer clanging] [drilling machine grunting]
[upbeat music]
- Hi, my name is Drew Scott of Lone Fox
and I would describe my style as attainable,
DIY, and eclectic.
- My name's Leonard Bessemer.
I'm a furniture designer,
and I describe my style as sculptural,
animated and indulgent.
- [Interviewer] So what'd you think when you found out
you had to hack an IKEA bookcase?
- I was honestly excited, first of all,
because the Billy popped in my head.
And I've worked with the Billy bookcase in the past,
so I was pretty stoked to do another project with it.
- What I'm trying to accomplish with this challenge
is I'm trying to make an IKEA bookshelf into my bookshelf.
Give it a life of its own.
So when you're looking at it,
you kind of have a little more reverence for it.
- We are gonna make this a very budget-friendly
so that you guys can recreate it.
I always keep it very, very simple.
I personally only own like four power tools,
but we are gonna make it work.
And I'm really excited to get started on this bookcase.
[upbeat music]
- I kind of wanted
to just get rid of the whole profile.
So I'm almost using it for materials solely,
and turn it into something almost completely different.
- So my design for this piece
definitely has like a slight art deco, retro flair to it,
which I love.
I think the bottom base of this piece
is gonna be really unique, and then the rounded edges
is just gonna add a nice movement to the piece,
and the shape's just gonna be really interesting in the end.
- When I'm designing furniture,
I always take in consideration where it's going,
who it's going to.
I think it's kind of an obligation
of a designer to do that.
But then I also think about the actual visual presence
and sculptural quality of the piece,
and that's also very important to me.
[upbeat music]
- We are in the car headed to Home Depot.
I need to pick up some supplies for the project.
Thankfully, the list is actually pretty minimal,
so let's get to shopping.
[upbeat music]
- So I scoured LA looking for a Billy bookcase,
and actually bought a second bookcase,
I used one that was really beat up
and used that to formulate my design
and create a template for the final bookcase.
I took the old bookcase,
I cut away the pieces I wanted to cut it away
and formulated it into a shape that I liked,
that worked for me.
From there, I take that template
and I attach that to the new piece
and using a flush-trim bit on the router,
cut out another duplicate of it.
Basically, it has a bearing on it
that will ride along this edge
and it'll cut the exact same shape.
[router grunting]
And there's our final piece.
This is a way that you can replicate something
if you wanna do go into production and create 10 of these,
I could do that.
But realistically, you could really just do
this with a jigsaw,
cut out the shape you want,
give it a little sanding, and it's ready to go.
- So step one of this project,
we are going to be creating the structure,
which is going to be on the side of our bookcase there.
I took a piece of paper,
and I drew out a 10 3/4 inch circle on that piece of paper,
folded it in half, cut it along the line,
and that was gonna be our template
that's gonna be transferred to our plywood
for the cut of the structure.
So my biggest challenge is gonna be cutting out
these half circle shapes perfectly
because the only half circle shapes I've ever cut out
are the ones behind me and this IKEA piece I also did.
It worked out you know,
but these are a little bit smaller.
I don't have too much jigsaw experience,
but we are gonna make this work,
and I'm certain that it's gonna work.[chuckles]
- [Interviewer] Are you certain it's going to work?
- I'm certain it's gonna work.
[Drew laughing]
[upbeat music]
[clock timer chiming]
- So I really wanted to reinforce this new bookcase
and I did that by using
the DOMINO connect system by Festool.
[DOMINO connect system grunting]
[upbeat music]
Now I can hold that firm.
- So I ended up using some L-brackets
to mount our shape to the bookcase.
[drilling machine grunting]
We're now gonna add the Pole-Wrap to this side.
So I recently found out about this product called Pole-Wrap,
which is essentially like slotted wood
that you can wrap around a basement pole
to make it a little bit more interesting,
but we're gonna be using it
to kind of fabricate the sides of our bookcase
and give it a slotted finish.
[upbeat music]
[machine grunting]
So we could play the drums like there's different sounds.
[machines grunting]
This nail gun is the best.
You just pull the trigger and the nail just goes.
[Drew chuckles]
- So, I've now cut out my shape
only I've exposed the particle board
that all IKEA furniture is made from,
and you can't really paint that.
So I need to basically cover that,
and to do that, I'm gonna use edge banding,
and it has like a hot glue on the back of it
so you can basically just heat it up
and stick it onto the edge
and then it will stay forever, and you can then paint it.
Pretty much everything in your kitchen
is a piece of plywood with an edge band that covers it up.
It's almost just like paper that glue's on,
and that just creates a barrier and a nice substrate
that I can actually apply a finish to.
[upbeat music]
- So I went ahead and removed the previous backing
and then added the Pole-Wrap in the back,
which I personally think also enhances
the structure of the piece,
but it also adds a really great design element
when you look at the bookcase from head-on.
- IKEA makes their furniture
to pack into a small box.
So the back has to be folded up into a piece,
and they also want to make it as light as possible.
Of course, the back is very important structurally.
So I'm gonna widen the back groove
for a different material.
It's actually just a piece of Masonite,
a little stronger, a little more sturdy.
[upbeat music]
- Voila, this is exactly what I was picturing.
I think once we do paint it though,
it's gonna look literally perfect.
[upbeat music]
- So for painting, the biggest challenge
is dealing with the pre-finished IKEA surface.
Your best friend is gonna be Shellac.
- IKEA furniture, traditionally,
has that kind of glossy laminate finish.
So a great way that you don't have to sand in prime
is actually using a shellac primer.
It just goes right over top, dries down,
and you're ready to paint.
- Shellac is a universal sealer.
You can kind of paint it over anything,
and you can kind of paint anything on top of it,
for the most part don't quote me on that.
But it's basically a wax made from beetles or beetle shells
and it's dissolved in alcohol.
So it's quite natural.
They use it on a lot of children's toys
'cause it's very safe.
And that'll create a barrier that I can safely apply
whatever finish I want on top of that.
[upbeat music]
Once I finished painting,
I wanna let it dry for a little bit,
and then I just put it back together.
Moment of truth.
[upbeat music]
So this is the new back that I made.
It's not super fancier, just a little bit thicker,
a little more solid, no creases, yeah.
[hammer clanging]
[upbeat music]
Looks pretty good.
[Leonard laughing]
[clock timer chiming]
- So what do you say? You guys wanna see a shelf?
[upbeat music]
- Hey, Leonard. - Hey, Drew.
- And this is the Leonard
I have been waiting to see, the projector.
[both laughing]
- [Leonard] Oh. - [Drew] Oh.
- I'm very impressed and I didn't see that coming.
[Drew chuckling]
I mean, it's just simple but unexpected,
really clean lines...
- [Drew] Thank you.
- Nice shape, gives it some volume.
It is that feeling where you make something
and you see someone else
and you're like a little envious of what they did.
I love how the actual slats are still there
and give it that texture and kind of bumps it up a level.
I'm amazed with what you're able to do
with just a little bit of imagination
and a little of time, and you can kind of make it happen.
And has IKEA or CB2 contacted you about producing this?
- You know not yet.
No one's really seen it yet, but we can,
we can have talks-
- We'll see . - About that.
[both laughing]
First of all, I don't even know how you constructed it,
or cut the sides like that and then put it back together
because that is mind boggling to me,
it looks like a puzzle.
- Originally, I just wanted to take the face of it
and give it some angle, give it a form
like it's almost like a living thing.
And then when I was doing that, I was kind of like,
I didn't like how the profile was still just a square.
- [Drew] Yeah.
- You're like, "Ow," I'm like,
"I'm gonna put these little ears on it."
It was just in the process.
- [Drew] Yeah.
- You're in the middle of it,
and that's when the actual good ideas come up.
- [Drew] I think that's my favorite part actually
is how it's not like a perfect squared-off top
because that's what you always expect
from the IKEA Billy bookcase.
This is so unique.
I've never seen anything like this.
I feel like that's just such a cool quality
about a lot of your work.
- My goal with all furniture is that
I want it to be when you walk in someone goes,
"Oh wow, what's that."
- [Drew] Yeah. - And to walk in when it's you
and you can look at something
and be like, every time you see it,
you get that kind of a warm, fuzzy feeling
of being like, "Oh, I love it."
Whether it's because it's something you bought
that was a really special find or custom,
or it's something you made yourself.
- Well, Leonard just so you know
I'm gonna be showing up very soon
to use this workshop or have you teach me how to use it?
- You have an open invitation Drew.
- Bye.
- See you later Drew,
and maybe next time they'll give us an extra day or two,
to finish this project.
- I will not disagree with you on that.
[upbeat music]