Use An IKEA Dishware Hack To DIY An Artsy Console Table To Stun

Part of the magic of IKEA is that its sprawling furniture showroom and marketplace don't simply offer well-designed goods at great deals — they provide a world of possibilities that only take a creative mind to unlock. With some clever reimagining and a little research, you can find loads of inspiration from TikTok's best IKEA hacks and other online DIYers to turn your affordable finds into impressive high-end dupes. Now, one viral hack has crafty home improvers discovering the secret to an ultra-chic, ultra-modern console table DIY in one of the most unlikely sources: the 11-inch BLANDA MATT serving bowl.

Wait, what? How do you go from a serving bowl for garden salads to a full-blown furniture piece? With a lot of glue and a tabletop, of course! By gluing multiple bowls together at their rims and bases, you can create columns of stacked spheres to work as table legs. From there, you only have to add a top surface. 

The design is similar to how you would transform this IKEA kitchen staple into a modern bedside table, only taken to the next level as a living room display. With no cutting, shaping, or advanced woodworking involved, the completed build is easy to pull off for any DIYer. Just add some adhesive, and then get into the fun of painting and designing a look you'll cherish and your guests will adore.

For this build, you'll need several BLANDA MATT bowls and a tabletop surface. Console tables are usually no more than 24 inches deep, so options like the LAGKAPTEN tabletop will fall within that range. Measure your space to see what fits. If you can't find a tabletop at IKEA, you could use repurposed doors in the home and other old items. Or, grab fresh lumber at Lowe's or Home Depot and have them cut it to size.

For the table legs, you'll alternate the IKEA bowls between upside down and right side up to create a stacked sphere aesthetic. Console tables typically stand 28 to 32 inches tall. With each bowl about 5 inches tall, you'll need five or six per leg to reach that height, depending on the tabletop's thickness. For stability, start each leg with an upside-down bowl so the rim sits on the floor. Apply a powerful, quick-setting adhesive, like Gorilla Heavy Duty Construction Adhesive, to the bowl bottom, and set another bowl on top of it. Then, put adhesive on the second bowl's rim, and stack another bowl upside down on it, connecting the rims to make a sphere.

Continue alternating and gluing bowls until you reach the desired height. As you work, use a vertical level around the leg's sides to ensure the bowls are aligned in a perfectly straight column. With the legs built, apply wood filler to the cracks and sand it smooth for seamless connections between the bowls.

After building the legs, glue on the tabletop and start considering how you'll finish the design with color and texture. You can lightly sand the surfaces to roughen the bowls' smooth outer layer and add your favorite paint color or apply an attractive stain. Textured paints, like Rust-Oleum Stone Creations Spray, add another layer to the aesthetic with faux stone and other natural effects. For the tabletop, you can use a matching paint or create some contrast with the legs. Contact paper is an easy and practical addition, supplying realistic patterns over the surface.

The finish isn't the only way to tweak and customize this neat IKEA hack to your tastes. Starting from the beginning, you can swap the BLANDA MATT bowls with other styles for one-of-a-kind creations. Rather than use the 11-inch variety, you can downsize to the 5- or 8-inch bowls for a different look and a little less money. DIYers have also used the metal BLANDA BLANK bowls with similar success, or you could see how the GRÖNSAKER bowls stack up in an offbeat shape.

Then, you can move to the shelving. Why not reflect the tabletop with a shelf on the bottom, giving the legs a flat foundation where you can store more items? If you're feeling extra ambitious, add even more shelves between the spheres, giving you an artsy DIY console table as utilitarian as it is beautiful.