IKEA Besta Couch Table Shelf Hack ~73 € to ~133 € Total

Hi!

This is my first instructable, so please bear with me not being very detailed yet. In fact, I learned about instructables AFTER I made this table and I honestly did not want to disassemble it again. But as my wife insisted in closing the two dark gaps on each side you see in this foto with white silicon, I took the time to document some details that should help everyone interested to rebuild this with ease.

You need:

1 IKEA Besta shelf corpus 60 cm * 40 cm * 38 cm, 20 €, available in white, oak and black-brown:

https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/besta-korpus-weiss-70...

1 IKEA Besta shelf corpus 60 cm * 20 cm * 38 cm, 15 €, available in white, oak and black-brown:

https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/besta-korpus-weiss-00...

1 IKEA Besta shelf floor 56 cm * 36 cm, 5 €, available in white, oak and black-brown:

https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/besta-boden-weiss-002...

2 IKEA Besta shelf floor 56 cm * 16 cm, 5 € each, 10 € in total, available in white, oak and black-brown:

https://www.ikea.com/de/de/p/besta-boden-weiss-402...

1 wooden board 60 cm * 60 cm * 2-3 cm for the top
and
1 wooden board 60 cm * 60 cm * 2-3 cm for the bottom (easier, but more expensive)

OR

1 wooden frame made made of (the way its shown in the photos, as I did)
2 wooden boards 60 cm * 10 cm * 2-3 cm
2 wooden boards 40 cm * 10 cm * 2-3 cm
I would estimate about 20 € to 80 €, depending on wood type and thickness, mine was cheaper)

8 screws 8 mm metric, about 40 mm to 60 mm in length, depends on your wood thickness. Make sure to measure and test, not to use too long screws by mistake. Use the included Besta feets' screws as example, ~2 €

about 4 wood screws to fix the top wooden board, ~1 €

So total cost on IKEA parts is ~50 €, ~ 3 € for screws and about 20 € to 80 € for the wood, Turns out in a table between 73 € to 133 € in total. For the wood glaze I hope you have a few drops at hand. The same for the silicon.

First I build up the two Besta shelfs and placed them back to back to resemble a 60 cm * 60 cm table. Place them upside down, as we begin with the bottom wooden frame.

So you have a deep shelf on the one side and a less deep shelf on the opposite side. I did not actually fixed them against each other - that is done with the wooden frame.

As you can see in the fotos I created a wooden frame out of the four pieces. It was done using lamellos and wood glue. Place the frame on the bottom side of the Besta shelfs so that the two 60 cm long wood boards go full length over both shelfs. This makes it more robust. The filling 40 cm long wood boards just fill the front and back gap and bring stability.

Then I drilled the holes for the 8 mm screws where they fit the holes in the Besta shelfs. Then I drilled bigger holes to sink the screw heads into, about 1 cm deep (at least deeper than the screws heads are). As I did want to use the bottom frame as the tables actual feet on my living room carpet, I managed to round everything using a mill and sand paper. Then I screwed it onto the Besta shelfs for test to see if all screws go in deep enough and nothing is scratching on the bottom side. Some fine tuing was applied and then I was fine with the results.

As it was fitting nicely, I disassembled it again and gave some wood glaze on it. After drying, everything was assembled again. Make sure to put the Besta shelfs in place, as they sometimes have some variance in production as I found.

Alternatively you might use a 60 cm * 60 cm wooden plate instead of the frame. The steps would be more or less identical. It will be potentially even more stable, but more heavy as well.

Now turn everthying upside down.

Make sure the two Besta shelfs back sides fit each other as good as possible and that the top plates do exactly fit each others. You might need a help hand or some clamps in case. I managed it with bare hands, as my clamp wasn't wide enough.

Place the 60 cm * 60 cm wooden board as top plate on the table. If it fits, you can simply drill four small holes from inside the shelfs into the wooden board (make sure not to drill too deep into the wooden board to not come out on top, 1/3 of its depth should be enough.

Screw in four wood screws and it should be fixed. Basically its ready.

If all is fine, disassemble the top plate. Round the top edges (I used a 5 or 6 mm round radius, can't remember exactly) and put some wood glaze on it as you did with the bottom.

After drying you can put it together.

Add the shelf floors on both sides. I used one for the deep side, two for the other side.

My loved wife insisted on closing the dark gaps on each side, where the side panels of each Besta shelf did not reach each other. I used white silicon for this. Put on some tape to cover the side panels and just leave the gap open. Then put on the silicon and make it flat with a silicon spatula or a small piece of wood or whatever fits the need.

After flattening the silicon, you can and should remove the tape carefully. This way the whole thing will look best and you don't run risk peeling off the dry silicon afterwards.

Let it dry for a day, then the silicon should be robust for daily use of the table.

Now you are done!

Decorate your new couch table, which is exactly fitting your IKEA Besta living room furniture.

By the way, the height of the table fits exactly the height of the IKEA Kivik couch, so when I sit on ours I can easily put my feet on the table if needed (using a pillow ;-) of course). Now you know why I made round edges to it.

We put some blankets on the lower deep side, newspapers, books and such in the upper part. Remote controls, game controllers and such fit in the less deep side. First time the remote controllers are't remote anymore!

Have fun!