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    This Bar Cart Ikea Furniture Hack Is Pretty Popular Online, So I Tried It For Myself

    IKEA success.

    Hi everyone! I'm Farrah, and I've actually never completed a major DIY project before. A while ago, I wrote up a piece on Ikea furniture hacks and came across this desk-to-bar-cart project. Since I'm limited on kitchen storage space in my new apartment, I decided to try it out for myself!

    This Ikea Vittsjö laptop desk is $40 brand new, but I found someone selling this one on Facebook Marketplace for $15. I recycled the glass and took the measurements to bring to Home Depot.

    Home Depot had plywood that I thought would be perfect to use. I needed two pieces, which totaled $30. They also cut it into the size I needed.

    Unfortunately, Home Depot couldn’t make the smaller 2-centimeter cuts I needed for the corners of the bottom piece, so I had a coworker do the honors! When I brought the wood home, it fit perfectly on the desk.

    I've never stained wood before, but an employee at Home Depot gave me the rundown on how to do it. I ended up purchasing a dark walnut wood stain and cotton rags to get the job done. I decided two coats was perfect for the stain I was going for. (You can tell that the board on the left has two coats while the board on the right only has one coat.)

    I waited 24 hours for the stain to dry, then put two coats of polyurethane on the top. Once I let that dry for 24 hours, I had my mom help me measure out where I'd attach the wineglass rack, which comes with everything you need to mount. We left 2 centimeters of room on the edges so it would still sit properly on the skeleton of the desk.

    And finally...the finished product! I'm really proud of how it turned out. I happened to own a wooden box I was using for storage, so I ended up staining it as well once I realized it fit perfectly in that little shelf. It holds all my wineglass stoppers and bottle openers. You definitely don't have to add the wine glass racks if you don't want to, but my apartment kitchen has limited storage space, so it was worth purchasing in my case!

    This was the type of bar cart look I was going for, so I'm so pleased with how it turned out. Larger bar carts I'd seen online were being sold for $150–$200, and I spent about $75 creating this one exactly how I wanted it! Have you ever completed an Ikea hack? Tell us in the comments!