Shoe Rack Hack

Materials: IKEA Lustifik

Description: I recently decided I needed some more storage for my shoes, but my small studio apartment lacks in that department.

This was actually not intended as a hack, as I had "accurately" measured the width of my closet with two Ikea plastic boxes, each being 20 centimeters wide. I measured my closet to 60 centimeters, and went out to Ikea to grab the Lustifik shoe rack, which is exactly 60 centimeters.

After assembling the shoe rack, I tried to fit it into my closet to no avail. I figured that it wouldn't fit because of the door, but after measuring more precisely (thank you for the paper measurement band Ikea!), I quickly realized that my closet was indeed 59 centimeters.

Seeing as it's not possible at all to fit the shoe rack inside the closet, I first thought of returning it, before my thoughts took a wild turn and I realized I could hack it.

The hack is pretty simple -- use the supplied thin, long metal rods, I wedged them inside the pre-drilled holes in my closet, which luckily turned out to be drilled with almost the exact same depth as the shoe rack.

I had to use brutal force to be able to get the metal rods of the shoe rack in place, but after some raw power and some sweat I won the fight.

While this isn't the prettiest hack of them all, it did the job and I'm happy to report that it's still holding up, after a full 15 minutes!

~ Henrik Christiansen, Norway