Alex Ikea Desk Hack

There are so many Ikea Hacks out there and some are so amazing, but I still couldn't find anything I really liked or wanted for my craft room. After about a month of going back and forth between 2 styles of desks I finally decided on the Alex brand desk. Before buying I had to know how I wanted to make it my own style. I looked through a bunch of ideas on Pinterest I can up with contact paper.

Great! I had an good ideas, but then I couldn't find a styles I like. Not wanting to give up on this idea, I came across vinyl wraps, (usually used for cars) and they had style and colors I liked. "YES! Now I can get everything and finally have my own desk!"

This would allow me to change the style or colors if I ever wanted to change my room. Which is a BIG bonus.

Supplies

• Desk
• Vinyl a piece about 5'x 3'

* You might be able to get by with a 5'x 2' piece

• Vinyl contrasting color 5'x 2'
• Scissors/X-Acto knife/rotary cutter
• Ruler
• Heat Gun /Blow dryer * Will take a little more time to heat up.

• Now that you have your Alex desk you can start to pull out all the pieces you need and set everything else aside.
• Measure the length of the pieces and takeoff 1". ( You won't need to cover interlocking parts.)
• Make your strips 4" in width * This will work for all pieces you will be cutting.
• Pull back the backing on corner of the vinyl and carefully place it on one side of your rod. Make sure that leave a little hanging over the edge to end some where in the middle. Be mindful that you are placing the vinyl so that the seams will not be obviously showing.
• Take your Heat Gun or Hair Dryer and heat up the edge 5" to 10" at a time, then take you finger or a smoothing tool ( gift card, cardboard, ect.) and smooth the vinyl over the edge and onto the flat side.
• Continue this until you make it to the opposite end

• Using your X-Acto knife or scissors to cut off the piece of vinyl that is covering your locking pieces. The rest can remain on there.
• Use your cutting tool to cut small slits in the corners of each side.
• Take your heat gun and heat up the the ends. This time you can leave in on a little longer, but don't burn it.
• Before it can cool push the ends to the inside of the rod.

You can repeat this for all pieces that are like this.

• Start off just like in step 1making sure that you leave a little extra to lay over the other rod.
• Using your cutting tool add a small slit just long enough to meet the 2 rods. Place the slits slightly close together so that they are just smaller than the rod.
• Use the Heat Gun to smooth the vinyl over the corners. Add a little more heat to the area that the rods meet so that it will lay smoothly.
• If you want to you can take your X-Acto knife and cut off the extra flap

Not really going into this at all because your desk will come with the instructions you need to do that. just letting you know that this is the next step.

So at this point everything looked good, but still a little plain. So ending up with some small pieces I place them in the middle of the drawer. The black strips I made use a sharpie and ruler. I chose this because if I decided I didn't like the look or wanted to change it I could take it off by just using a cloth and some rubbing alcohol.

So after all that I still felt it was a little plain so I went back on Amazon to see if i can find another color to add to it. This took a while because most vinyl was dark or 2 toned. I wanted something light. I knew I at least wanted it to be teal, this is mint I know, but it would work with the theme I was going for. This piece of vinyl was 5'x 2' .

I love the way it looks now! All that is left is to work on the rest the room.