Friday, June 19, 2015

Fjellse Bed review with the Jömna mattress and Lüroy slats

When you are a student, and quite the church mouse, and you have the added task of moving into a new apartment that has nothing in it, you would probably do what we did----- head over to IKEA! The answer to so many people's furniture problems and the birthplace of brilliant ideas that turn mere mortals into accomplished designers and carpenters! In the end, the result is rewarding and thats why we all do it!
I am a huge IKEA fan , just because I can afford the furniture, I dont own a car, and can transport everything by bus, and then last but not least, the blank as a canvas furniture could be transformed into anything the mind can conceive!
This post isnt about any Hacks, it is actually a review of the Fjellse bed:

When we set out to buy a bed, we were initially planning on buying an EXARBY sofa bed(we had used one in the past and even though it was 120x180cms as a bed, it was comfy for us two stick thing creatures).
An EXARBY bed would clock in at Euro 99,99
And a FJELLSE bed with everything would cost about  Euro Euro 129,98
The difference of gaining 20 cms more in width and height really did it for us, and we decided to spend the extra money and buy a Fjellse bed.
Now we weren't sure how it would work out and how well it would hold. So I began searching online for some clues and this bed had mostly good reviews, and I was curious about the mattress too, so I had to really dig around online in English and then becasue there wasnt enough out there I searched in German, which was just as much as the english ones.
In the end we went out and bought the Bed frame, the slats and the Jömna mattress.


We are bit stereotypical and even bought the same bed cover(its not very nice, more polyester-ish than anything i have ever touched)

Great value for money- Jömna

This is a close look at the slats that are stapled to the grey ribbon, hence the creaks are more amplified than if it was sturdier. I will be woodgluing it to the sides soon..

The two slats

I must say thought, this bed has exceeded my expectations.
It is sturdy, lightweight, and has very few creaks, and most of these creaks(in my experience) are from the slats(expensive slats would hold out much better)
The really good part is the mattress, for that cheap(Euro 49,99) to get a brand new mattress , the mattress is very good. I am planning to go out and buy a mattress cover one of these days just for added comfort, but I must say, this bed is good.
We have test driven it with active night time romps and it has been a silent spectator to all our craziness, not a creak to be heard.
I suppose it will wear out over time, but for right now, I am very happy with it.. I have a hack in mind for the headboard and will put up a post as soon as its ready!
Anyone has questions about this bed, I can give you honest answers and If you are considering buying a bed that is cheap but you want something new, go for the whole package, it is really good for the price!
So long :)
This  a small part of our cosy bed, and I will soon put up a post on the upgraded headboard design I have in mind




Ikea's DOMBAS hack with Extra shelving(Customizing Ikea furniture)

Our first ever IKEA Hack (mostly done by my darling husband)

Since having to move to a new apartment that had nothing in it, I have been saddled with worries on how to budget so that I have enough furniture and make it do the maximum for the space that is at a premium in my tiny studio that I share with my husband. We are both students and are quite excited about this move, but are really going crazy keeping a balance between: Space-Money-functionality-aesthetics.
So we moved into the home with the following pieces of furniture:
1 Malm 4 Drawer Dresser
1 Micke desk
1 Melltorp square table
1 Bekvam kitchen cart
4 Gunde chairs(white)
1 Fjellse double bed
2 Luröy slats
1 Jömna double mattress
1 Solsta sofa bed
2 Bandblad Pillows
and a variety of other small knickknacks from Ikea
We also made a visit to the FUNDECKE (that's the "as is" section here in German speaking Austria) and picked up a lovely pair of door curtains that we hung on our "french" windows.

After much argument, we came to a settlement of having everything well set and looking passably unobtrusive. Now we still had bags of clothes(especially winter wear lying around that we didnt know where to put), so it was time for a hack...
Scouring tons of websites and searching everywhere, we finally decided to take matters into our own hand.
Now keep in mind that we are English speaking persons living in Austria, so its twice as hard to find what you need, so we had to struggle just to have the confidence to attempt this, but I am so glad that we did!!
So what we hacked was the Domabas wardrobe, which at Euro 69,99 is a real steal!

Here is what the Dombas looks like to start off with:
Ours still looks like this on the outside...
The following image shows what it looks like on the inside in its original form:

So what we did is, we exchanged the sides:
 Keine Sorgen , I will explain how we did it, and you can try it too... its the best idea we have ever had when it came to "updoing" or modifying something..


So here is the (badly drawn) plan we had in mind:


And here is what you would need:

- 4 planks of lightweight but strong wood
- a saw(or go to the hardware store when you buy the planks and have them cut it for you)
- Drill
- angle brackets (16 in total)
- 32 screws

So we took out the rod and had it cut at the hardware store to fit the narrow side of the wardrobe.
And here are some pictures of the process
Our wood planks look like this -----^
I love that it is natural wood
Thats my hubba bubba drilling the holes

The lowest are the most difficult
This is the angle bracket we used

Here is a look at the finished product:

Hubba bubba chose not to drill into the planks.. I think it looks good.. a bubble measure would help(I downloaded an app for a bubble measure on my phone and it worked very well for us)


I still dont have pictures of the right side, well simply because, I am lazy, and I cant be bothered to hurry up!
So this is my blog post with some ideas you could use to hack your own Dombas and I will follow up with pictures for my next blog post with the results of the right side of this hack...Love to all who wander across this post!!

Enjoy customising IKEA's blank-as-a-canvas furniture and make it your own!

We have so much more space to store everything , and soon the vacuum sealable bags I ordered online should be here and then we will have ample of space, we might just not know what to do with!