Faced with a nursery storage challenge and an impending due date, Daniel Kat, Senior Software Developer at Chaos, demonstrates a creative workflow to transform a small closet. By combining IKEA’s online planner for layout, Veras for visualization and material testing, and 3D printing for custom hardware, he shows how modern tech can bridge the gap between an idea and a finished home project.
Key takeaways:
- Using the new Veras reference image feature, Daniel successfully overlaid an IKEA digital layout onto a real-world photo of the existing closet to visualize the final result.
- While online planners are often limited to specific products, Veras was used to fill the shelves with baby supplies and add custom elements like hanger rods that didn't exist in the IKEA catalog.
- The project highlights the necessity of 3D printing to create bespoke brackets and supports tailored to unique wall types (plaster-on-masonry vs. lath) where standard hardware failed.
My partner and I are expecting our first baby soon, so I used IKEA’s online tools to model and populate our nursery closet with shelving, Veras to render and fine-tune it, and a few 3D printed parts to get it built.
IKEA - a very kreativ 3D modeling tool
With less than a month to go until our first child arrives, we found ourselves drowning in piles of gifted and donated clothes, diapers, toys, and more.
Our home’s second bedroom, which we are going to use as the nursery, has a small closet (~ 3’ x 4’) that had only one janky plywood shelf and a bent metal clothes hanger bar, courtesy of the previous owner.
Being a fan of, and lucky enough to live not too far from, an IKEA, I tried out their online room designer tool to make the initial layout:
It’s pretty easy to use, albeit a tad coarse. You can search for and add many (but not any) IKEA products to the room you’ve modeled. However, only simple room shapes are available (rectangles, “L” shapes, etc.).
And, in true IKEA fashion, when you are all done, you can print out a shopping list with the click of a button. Time to go shopping!
Seeing what it could actually look like with Veras
Firstly, I wanted to see what my IKEA design would look like if it had stuff actually in it. So, I asked Veras to do just that. I had Veras add the two clothes hanger rods on the right side, since IKEA didn’t have those.
Secondly, the IKEA tool has its limits. You can’t see what the shelves would look like full of your stuff, you can’t match your exact paint color or lighting of your space, nor can you add any non-IKEA elements.
I wanted to see the design in my actual space, so I brought a photo of my closet into Veras and used the reference image feature, released in Veras 4.0, to attach my IKEA layout screenshot as basically a visual extension of my prompt.
Veras applied the shelving layout almost exactly to my existing photo, while also allowing me to add in extras, like the clothing hanger rod and 3D-printed brackets.
Once I did that, I took it a step further and asked what it could look like if it were full of baby supplies:
3D printing
Nothing ever goes exactly to plan when you actually build it. In the end, I had to make a few changes.
The back wall had only one stud (dead center), so instead of two L-brackets, I used one there and designed and 3D-printed two custom side supports—each with different screw hole sizes, since the left wall is plaster-and-lathe and the right is plaster-on-masonry.
The same went for the closet rod hanger: IKEA only sells those as part of a full wardrobe system. The Home Depot options weren’t great, so I designed and printed two of those, again customized for the type of wall construction they had to attach to.
Here’s a close-up of some of the 3D printed parts:
Done! The whole thing, as I’m writing this, is sitting and waiting to be filled with all our baby supplies. Maybe I’ll post a follow-up photo once we fill it up with stuff, if I can do it neatly.