Happy New Year and how to sleep on higher ground

Happy 2009! Made any resolutions? Broken them yet? Let's start the year with this super cool Malm bed with lots of storage.

Andrew says, "We had an idea to somehow add under-bed shelving to a Malm king bed using the Lack shelving unit. The original thought was to add legs to the Malm and slide one Lack under each side. The problem came when we couldn't find a way of attaching legs that satisfied both my structural/safety concerns and Jennifer's aesthetic sense; either they'd be attractive but too small or not well-attached, or ugly but bulky and secure.

The beginnings of a solution came from an Ikeahacker post on headboards which linked to aerialsoul's Malm headboard hack. The main inspiration we took from this is that the best way to add to a Malm bed is to just buy another set. We're using the headboard from one set as the footboard, and our headboard is made from the second headboard sitting atop the two footboards. Everything works together to make a cohesive, connected bed. We couldn't be more pleased!

Supplies list:

2x Malm king bed, black/brown 
2x Lack shelving unit, black/brown 

4x 6' 1x4 lumber, used as cleats to secure the three pieces of the headboard
2x 24" 1x4 lumber used to reinforce the repurposed headboard where it doesn't have interior structure
1x 24" 1x6 lumber, same
1 qt. black paint, used on the sanded lumber
wood glue, various wood screws and random Ikea hardware
8x plastic furniture feet for easy movement on carpet (4x for each of two Lack units)

Check out Andrew's blog post  or the assembly photos and final product."

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It's getting tougher and tougher shortlisting the top hacks for the year. I hope to be able to make my final selection tomorrow and get the post done. So watch this space. Click here to see 2007's.

Next, on a totally unrelated note, but I am a big fan of Leo of ZenHabits (who is also part of LifeRemix) so I just got to bend my rules to sneak this in. He has just launched his new book, The Power of Less. I love his stripped down principles for life and nuggets of succinct truth. Do hop over to check out the book and if you pre-order it before 1 Jan midnight, you get 3 bonus giveaways too. 

Please also join me to welcome Easy Appliance Parts as our new Sponsor for 2009. They offer over 1 million appliance parts in stock for do-it-yourselfers. Wow. So if you need to replace a part in your microwave or dishwasher or fridge, you know where to go.