coffee bar | EffortlessCool

in 2011 I was 21, living in Brooklyn with my roommate and friend at the time. Our apartment was a hodge podge of Ikea and street/craigslist finds, but we loved it and it was ours. My bedroom was pretty bare bones but my roommate had the full Ikea Malm bedset, including a headboard with sliding storage. I was so envious of that headboard; it kept clutter out of sight and added a shelf to a small New York apartment.

Fast forward 5 years and I’m living in my own home with my boyfriend. I still think about the Ikea Malm headboard, probably on a weekly basis, and it’s even worse because it’s been discontinued. And it’s even worse because I want it for my living room and Z isn’t seeing my vision. So what do I do?

I scour Craigslist. for months. Eventually, I find the right headboard, the right size, the wrong color, and I buy it. I haul it into my Jeep and trek the heavy piece back to my home.

I get home and set it up behind my couch, which was my plan to hide pet toys and our ever growing bitters collection while giving us space for another lamp and some odds and ends. Behind the couch, though, it throws off the symmetry of the room and I’m forced to remove it and place it in the dining room where- woah. it matches the dining room table. And fits snuggly against the wall. And I was planning to get a corner hutch for all of our extra kitchenware but this….this works.

I’ve filled it with extra glassware, antique kitchen pieces, and….coffee! We had a coffee bar in the corner of our dining room but it was nice to move it over here and get it to spread out a little. The old coffee corner is now a wine corner though, so there’s still plenty of drinks to go around!

Anyway, now I have a functional headboard in my dining room. It was $40 and possibly one of my best furniture buys of all time. All it took was the vision, patience, and a go-with-the-flow attitude.

What do you think of this repurposing? Do you have any favorite functional pieces like this in your home?