Five years ago, I hacked a couple of IKEA Billy Bookcases to solve a storage dilemma I had in my sitting room on a budget. As I’ve recently redecorated this space, I thought as part of the new scheme I would update the hack to improve on what I had previously built!

With the previous bookcase hack, I had not added anything on top so it always felt a bit ‘boxy’. I decided to add height to the hack so it looked more like a traditional built-in bookcase; it was also time to say goodbye to the wallpaper that I had previously lined the back with.

To start, I simply pasted over the old paper with paintable, textured beadboard wallpaper (which cost me just over £10 from B&Q). This provided visual interest to the back of the storage hack and it meant that I could paint the bookcase all the same colour for a more sophisticated look.

For the top, I wanted to add height and moulding to create that lipped look of traditional bookcases. To do this, I purchased some timber that was 10cm wide and cut it down to size to fit the full length and depth of the bookcase - this built a box that could sit on top of the existing hack. I used corner brackets to secure the planks together (rather than using screws or nails that would be seen on the outside of the timber.)

I secured the box to the top of the hack (also using brackets), then cut down some strip moulding cut at a 45° angle using a mitre saw (an inexpensive mitre box and handsaw works just as well).

I glued the strip moulding on using some instant grab adhesive, also adding a small half-moon dowel across the lower half of the box to conceal the slight gap between the top of the hack and the new top box fitting.

Once the adhesive was dry, I used caulk and an all-purpose filler to blend everything together with no gaps or edges showing.

To finish, I painted the entire thing the same colour as the walls using a water-based eggshell paint (Stone V by Paint & Paper Library in an Architects’ Eggshell which has a built-in primer).

I’m really pleased with the update! I think it looks a lot better than before!