Ikea has affordable style down to an art. Personally, I love the store and Ikea’s overall design schemes. The only problem is, when I buy a piece from Ikea, I know that millions of other people have that same exact piece sitting in their homes, which slightly lessens the degree of satisfaction I feel in scoring it.

But, good news! If I’m able to take a great, relatively inexpensive Ikea piece and customize it to my home, my taste, my needs…well, that’s a different story altogether. I’d call that a win-win-win. Like these pieces below are:

Vintage Suitcase Table

Turn a generic Lack side table into a custom vintage suitcase table. Not only a conversation piece, this table doubles as stylish storage. Bonus: you can use the original Lack tabletop for wall art!

Bookcases to bay window seatAnother image with the bay window seat

Various Traby bookshelves are combined to create this cozy bay window retreat. I love the symmetry here, and with the existing room’s dimensions, the combination looks almost like a built-in. Bonus: this bay window seat doubles as a daybed for guests!

Cheap melodi lamp

Custom lighting can be expensive, but these personalized Melodi lights sidestepped the big-budget obstacle with decorative napkins and mod podge. Bonus: Ikea napkins sometimes match Ikea bedding, which means a coordinated lighting-bedding set!

Vintage style

The appearance of age on file drawers somehow lends significance to the information inside…at least, that’s how I feel about this Moppe drawers upgrade. The brass finger pulls and rounded drawer corners are the perfect touch of vintage. Bonus: file pull cards can be customized and swapped out as drawer contents change!

Amazing Ikea dresser hack

Use a large black-and-white engineer’s print of your favorite photo, cut, and mod podge it to the front of a Malm dresser for a totally customized piece. Bonus: If the photo is of your child(ren), this will instantly become their favorite piece of furniture forever and ever, amen.

Picture source: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.