Building a cupboard house with IKEA: LILLE HUS in large format

If you've been following us from Limmaland for a while, then you'll no doubt be familiar with our cute rows of houses for wall decoration. And we'd like to introduce you to a great new idea for the children's room: We'll show you how to build a cupboard house! As always, using simple IKEA furniture. Let's go!

What you need to build a cupboard house

Cupboard or shelving unit as a base - preferably used furniture for upcycling
Chipboard cut to fit your cupboard
Wood glue and clamps (for fixing when drying)
Wood varnish in your favourite colour and a brush/roller for application

Simple cupboards as the basis for a colourful children's room

The great idea for building a cupboard house and the pictures come from @ourlittle_dream_house and immediately inspired us. That's why we're delighted to be able to share this DIY project with you! The basis for the cupboard houses are very simple IKEA cupboards. In this case, it's a METOD play kitchen cabinet* and an IVAR chest of drawers*. But you can also remodel other pieces of furniture.

Building a cupboard house with wood panelling & paint

Now it's time to clad the cupboards. You can have chipboard cut to size at the DIY store to fit your cupboards exactly. Then glue them to the cupboard door with wood glue.

It gets a little tricky with the wooden panels that you attach to the sides of the cupboard. In order to attach the roof, the boards must be sawn to a 45-degree mitre.

The cupboard house is slowly taking shape! Now it's time for the roof. Here, too, you have panels cut to size, which are mitred at 45 degrees at the ends. Then grab your wood glue again and glue the roof together.

The last part is the triangle in the roof for the closed cupboard. You can of course leave this triangle open for open shelves.

Build a cupboard house in your favourite colour

The best thing about building a cupboard house is, of course, the colour. And here you can let your imagination run wild! With a good wood varnish and a little patience, you can design your cupboard house in your favourite colour. By the way: We have summarised the best tips for painting IKEA furniture in a blog article.

Incidentally, you can also take inspiration for the colour selection for your cabinets from our LILLE HUS house series! For those of you who don't fancy an elaborate DIY project, there are also custom-fit adhesive foils for your IKEA furniture in Limmaland. Take a look here!