This is Not Benchwork...Yet

Ikea furniture seems to have become fodder for small layout builders as potential benchwork.  It is mentioned in Iain Rice's perennial "Small, Smart and Practical" layout design book (terrific eye candy, that stuff!) and a quick Google search will turn up some fine examples of others who have "hacked" Ikea furniture into all sorts of things.  Bernie Kempinski even used some under one of his layouts and another modeler posted a link in the comments to his use of IVAR shelving as benchwork here:

http://usmrr.blogspot.com/2015/03/ivar-instant-benchwork.html

I have now joined the ranks of Ikea Hackers, though not formally on their website.  My eldest needed a desk in his room but had these "GORM" shelves.  They came with our last house and moved with us to this one.  After a bit of cogitating I determined that I could use the components from the shelves plus a few planks from the store and arrive at a desk/shelf combo for his room.  With the leftover bits I could then create benchwork that doubles as shelving for the layout space in the living room.

Here is the desk/shelf combo (minus the desk top still to come) in my son's room:

And here are the bits left over, some of which will be used in the benchwork:

BTW, I am hoping to make this Sunday afternoon posting a regular occurrence.  I have been successful at fighting my perfectionist tendencies lately...they tend to get in the way of all kinds of productivity and fun.  So these blog posts may not be as polished as they could be, but I will be sharing content and hopefully eventually gaining a few more readers who share my interests.  If you like this sort of stuff, please share with others who do also.