Living Room Storage

welldone · Mar 3rd, 06, 2:05 pm

We need our living room to function as living space, toy room/storage, and a little bit of book storage.

We also need to do this on the cheap! So, as always, we're back to IKEA. How handy that the living room is connected to our IKEA STAT kitchen? We could be IKEA models.

I'm thinking of IVAR. It's flexible, natural, and cheap. But it looks so...utilitarian. Can anyone creative here convince me that IVAR can look good in a living room? I want to avoid the dorm room look, but on a dorm room budget....

Thanks!

**GardenOfDarwin** · Mar 3rd, 06, 2:22 pm

How aboutpainting it? Do you have a total budget for this (or just cheap?) and dimensions that you want to fit? Maybe we can come up with something...

Susan

P.S. I'd still love to have your kitchen pics posted over here...in progress and all! How far along are you?

anna · Mar 3rd, 06, 3:01 pm

Welldone, a slightly more finished-looking option that's still cheap is the NORREBO line. With options like the bench storage, the TV cart, and the open shelving, it seems like it would fit your needs nicely.

My husband uses the IVAR shelves to house his (enormous) comic book collection, but I don't think I'd want them in my living room (the shelves OR the comics, hahah). Like Susan suggested, though, I think they might look a little less like garage storage if they were painted.

fisheggs · Mar 3rd, 06, 3:13 pm

The display of Ivar that I saw (similar to the one on the "what's your style?" page in their online shelving section) looked really nice because they used a very homogeneous style across the length of the whole room. All doors on the bottom, all shelves on top, and lots of nice boxes on the shelves, grouped by color.

I think that staining the supports and painting the shelves and/or doors a color or different stain would look really nice and add some visual interest.

I think that if you put some thought into it and mix in some interesting materials, you can achieve an interesting artsy look with ivar instead of a garage feel. Right now, Gorm, which replaced the old ivar, is the one that looks like it belongs in a basement/garage to me.

Edited to add link to image....

**GardenOfDarwin** · Mar 3rd, 06, 3:14 pm

shhh! Don't give Tigger the idea that his comic book collection might live in the otherwise inhabited areas of the house!

Seriously.

Susan

**DesignDiva** · Mar 3rd, 06, 3:41 pm

We have the Journalist series, and I like it because it's got great lines and exposed metal. I love the Bonde, but it is $$$. How about Billy? You can get all sorts of combinations with that line.

kmcg · Mar 3rd, 06, 7:05 pm

You might consider Stat cabinets in the living room too. If you have a wall that's relatively short, you could put a bench seat made of fan cabinets (could even put drawers in it, I think) flanked by a couple of 30" high cabinets. Mega-storage, out of view, and it would coordinate with the kitchen.

Kathy

welldone · Mar 3rd, 06, 8:27 pm

Good thoughts. I like Norrebo and Billy. Norrebo is a bit more expensive, but I'll keep looking at it.

Billy will do well in our library/office/guest room. But for storage, esp. toys, it's too shallow (11"). I want to get baskets to put different groups of toys in, and 11" deep baskets don't hold an awful lot.

I never thought of Journalist...

Still thinking of IVAR. Painting, staining, etc. might help. Maybe I could jazz it up with fabric doors?

Keep the thoughts coming! I need ideas from people who've either done it already or have a good design eye.

nyc_home · Mar 4th, 06, 4:53 pm

It's true that you can jazz up IVAR by painting it a/o designing your set up well. But, having used it in our kids room, I have to say that its sometimes a little too deep---the things that aren't in large baskets have a tendency to get lost on the shelves, or worse, fall into that little gap between the shelf and the wall.

welldone · Mar 6th, 06, 7:41 pm

That's a good point. We tend to lose a lot of toys to that little crack between the wall and a table/shelf/what have you.

I could do BILLY, but I've had bad luck with white foil finish shelving before. Our last set didn't survive our recent move so well...a little Gorilla Glue and paint has made it serviceable, but far from pretty!

I guess I'll have to prioritize. I suppose one can't be partial to solid wood, good design, and affordability, all at the same time?