IKEA Markor bookcases revisted

Note: Unfortunately IKEA no longer carries this line. 

Which is a huge bummer because the bookcases are sturdy and gorgeous!

And by the way, I apologize in advance for using the word "bookcase" 13 times in a single post.  

I first introduced these to you on Two Nuts in a Shell in our office reveal post. This was back at our old house when we actually had a designated room for an office. At the new house, we've lost about 350-square feet, and one of the rooms that was nixed was an office. We have a loft/landing area upstairs that's been serving as our "study." It's basically our Expedit workstation and office chair. 

Before I continue with my bookcases, I have to take a side road for a second. A few weeks ago, Jason and I were talking about buying a smaller Expedit shelving unit for our bedroom (apparently we like the furniture collection) so we would have more storage. We even had it all picked out at IKEA, we just never pulled the $60 trigger. Thank goodness!

Back to to the bookcases. We managed to find a new home for one in between our couches in our living room (sounds odd, but looks really cool), but the other was taking up space in our little dinning room. Confession:  I haven't even moved the table in yet because it would have look so crammed in there with the bookcase. And then I had what I thought was a brilliant idea: I would take apart our current desk, reconfigure a shelf on our bookcase to sit at the same height, combine our bookcase with our desk, thus leaving me with an Expedit shelving unit for our bedroom! Genius! And, insane. It was way more work than I expected but gave me such a big payout that I don't regret a single f-bomb that was dropped.

I made sure to measure the depth of the pre-existing bracket holes so I wouldn't wind up drilling through the side of my bookcases. Using painter's tape was the easiest way to know when to stop drilling; no guess work involved.

Once all four holes were drilled and the brackets had been hammered into place, I held my breath and wiggled the shelf into the bookcase. 

Success! It's level!

I won't lie, this was only attempt number one. Turns out I miscalculated when measuring the height of the original desk portion, plus I didn't take into account the thickness of the bookcase shelf. So it took two more grueling, sweat-inducing tries before finally getting it all right (during which the desk was dropped on my foot and I got pinched by my pliers resulting in a nice little blood blister--both produced f-bombs). But once all the hard work was done, it was time to reassemble and enjoy!

A few shots of the decor I've got going on right now. The three little books resting in the nook are some of my favorite details since they make the extra gap look a little more deliberate, as well as hide the brackets that attach the desk to the bookcase. 

I'm super stoked with the extra height the bookcase adds, not to mention I like that it mixes the modern straight desk lines with the semi-decorative molding on top. The colors are only slightly off (they're both IKEA's signature "black-brown" color, but the desk is more solid whereas the bookcase has more of a "wood grain" look to it) but it's not enough to bother us. 

Now all we have to do is move the Expedit section into our bedroom for some added storage. And the best part of all our blood, sweat, and f-bombs is we didn't spend a dime!