Butchering Bekvam: love this cart?

When Paolo and I tried to count the years of neglect, we couldn’t. Had it been three years or six since Bekvam was last fed? Shrugs all around. This was the little kitchen cart that time forgot.

Bought in his bachelor heyday, Ikea’s sturdy Bekvam cart weathered all sorts of manly butchery: moose, polar bear, reindeer, beaver and every other of Canada’s best-kept recipes. It’s followed us to every apartment since – the unwanted dog who’s too loyal to figure out a bad scene and find better fortune elsewhere. We neither wanted, needed or loved Bekvam – and the neglect showed. Never having oiled it, its top was badly warped – useless for chopping boards.

Recently, I’d badly scorched the top – a telling black eye signaling worse yet to come.

It was about to meet a grisly fate in a Vancouver alley: “use and abuse me, my owners don’t care” as hasty Sharpie post-script.

Kitchen fantasy island – hazy plans

“Kitchen island” was waiting towards the bottom our of renovation list, whether we’d try to build it or scrounge around to buy it. Come sale time, we’d need something there and if we could enjoy use of it in between – even better. These were mere piecemeal plans until our kitchen renovation left us with a remnant square of our Ikea butcher block countertop….

Bekvam hacked into Stenstorp?

More attack than hack, Bekvam was stripped down and sorted out yesterday, strangely morphing into the far more lovable Stenstorp.

As a quick cost-comparison, IKEA BEKVÄM is $59.99 in Canada and a piece of Lagan countertop is $55 [Update Aug '11: now Bekvam is $69.99]. That gives you twice as much as you need and our local Home Depot cut it in half for free. So if you like Stenstorp but don’t need the stainless steel shelves, you could make your own version for $115 – beating Stenstorp’s $299 by a Swedish mile. (If planning similar with a new Bekvam, it would be even easier to do straight out of the box. The slatted shelves are a pain to paint).

It doesn’t take much to feel like you’re the cleverest, sneakiest winner on earth, does it? Our quick and cheap (rather, free – we already had the top, primer and paint) fix means we love our Ikea Bekvam twice as much as we ever did. Whether it’s a permanent fixture or a place-marker for something else – for this little effort, who cares?

Re-colouring Ikea must have caught on – Bekvam now matches our Ingo dining table… and then the Groland kitchen island found himself in the way of my paintbrush. And recently we’ve painted an Expedit, too. (Might be time for a new hobby). Take a look – or subscribe now for the next paint attack.