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| Photo: IKEA.com |
Description: There is just no such thing as 30-cm wide LILLÅNGEN mirror-doored wall cabinet. As a matter of a fact there is also no 90-cm cabinet of such kind. Wall cabinets with full mirror doors are available only in 60cm and 40cm widths so if you need to fill 90cm or 30cm of wall space then you need to hack.
IKEA product used: Two-door mirror wall cabinet LILLÅNGEN 202.051.71
Tools used: circular saw, hacksaw, 5mm drillbit, 8mm drillbit, 15mm hole-cutting drillbit, powerdrill. Clamps. You can never have too many clamps.
HOW-TO:
to modify the width of the cabinet you need to hack only three parts from the original set. Backboard, upper end and lower end.
Backboard is the easiest part so if you want to get warmed up then you can start here. Just separate two backboard pieces by cutting the tape connecting them and saw off 10mm of the taped edge from one piece.
Top and bottom pieces are identical but need some steady hand to work with, especially when drilling. So let's get started.
First cut the pieces to length with circular saw. Clamp two pieces together perfectly aligned and mark the desired length. You will aim for 268mm length after cut so please be sure that you are familiar with your saw and know exactly how it cuts. I used a bit of masking tape on top to reduce chipping by sawblade.
Now comes the interesting part - drilling the holes. I'd like to start with 15mm top holes. Please note the pattern of positioning of the holes. Centers of the 15mm holes are positioned 34.5mm from the end of the board and 38/28 mm from the respective sides. Drill carefully and use some kind of measure to compare the resulting depth with original holes.
Proceed to side holes. Easiest way of marking the correct hole positions is to use the cutaway part from the top/bottom board. Align it carefully with your piece, clamp it and use right-angle ruler to mark the borderlines of original holes to your piece. Drill the holes. 5mm hole depth is about 23mm. 8mm hole should just be drilled to meet the top holes.
That is your finished hacked top (or bottom) piece. Repeat the drilling with other piece.
When you have your hacked top/bottom and backboard ready then it is easy sailing from there on. Just assemble your lean 30cm cabinet according to original instructions (obviously sans one door).
~ Martin, Estonia
