Hacking Ikea products to make them personal

Wow, that was disappointing.

In _Shop Class As Soulcraft_, there's a chapter about the death of the tinkering spirit in American culture, where he takes to task Build A Bear Workshop (although, come on, they're kids!) and a bike manufacturer that allows enthusiasts to "customize" their bikes by custom-ordering variants of the bike or buying bolt-on kit parts. This site made me think of that.

It's all well and good, I guess, to stick decals on your Ikea furniture. I was just hoping for actual woodworking.

I'm not sure I'd call this "hacking" (I expected a bed to be pulled apart and turned into something else). This is a fun idea, but it's simply "decorating".

Awesome startup concept! Take a product that everybody knows and almost everybody buys. Add some sort of modification that will appeal to a lot of people. Let your users create the merchandise and start earning.

Very well done!

It's odd that LACK table costs $8 but to decorate it you have to spend at least €12.

I read an article a while back ( not the story I read but the same idea http://wadias.in/site/arzan/blog/ikea-and-india/) that talked about how in India the new middle class want Ikea stuff but they aren't there yet. So these people will take Ikea catalogs to local craftsmen and have them produce furniture that looks just like the stuff in the catalog. I would suspect that the quality is much higher (materials and whatnot).

Personally when I am in Ikea I think that where things are headed is to make the stuff infinitely customizable using the website. I mean image if you went to their site and started with one of the basic notions like 'chair', 'table', or 'shelf' and could (w/in reason) stretch and distort the base product. Then they figure out how much it would cost to build that and ship it to you. Maybe even work out custom assembly instructions etc. It would be cool to stretch a table and watch the price change continuously then maybe jump up quickly. You could investigate and see that at that length it would require an extra piece of metal for support for example.

I wish they could support Inkscape. Anyone wants some XKCD pictures on their furnitures? Now that I want to see

sorry for the meta comment here but how can such a post end on the front page? Custom furniture stickers. OK there is a startup. This seems so out of place don't you think?

EDIT: Please no need to downvote me if you disagree - just state your POV. Thx

I have a friend at http://maomium.com who is customizing (or decorating, as you wish) standard Ikea furnitures. Each piece is unique as he draw everything by hand (lots of work and dedication involved here).

Another great idea is Comfort Works, which makes slipcovers to Ikea sofas: http://www.comfort-works.com/.

Brillant concept :) Will have to try it out soon!

There is some latin on the How to cover page (last step)

did you want your title tag to be "customize you Ikea furniture" as in the "learn you a <programming language>"? or should you have an "r" in there?

I'm surprised that page calls IKEA furniture "well-designed". To me, and to some other people I know, it seems that they work hard to make it s ugly as possible. Or at least pretty bland.