I hacked the Ikea Skruvby glass door cabinet with cane webbing! This is my first Ikea hack ever.
Ever since I moved into my new place, I have been searching far and wide for a storage unit by my front door where I can leave mail, store writing utensils and scrap paper for quick notes, and have extra storage for planters and other items. I was attracted to rather expensive units with cane webbing like this and this which cost upwards of $500 CAD. With a mortgage to pay and a small budget, I continued to look for cheaper options that I liked. This Alexandra Gater video got me hooked on the idea of DIYing decorative cane webbing on furniture.
Enter Ikea’s Skruvby cabinet, which comes in either white or my favourite, midnight/dark navy blue (Ikea calls it “black-blue”). Skruvby comes either with slatted doors or glass-fronted doors, and I tossed and turned between the two for months, wondering if this cane webbing hack would work. Stock finally became available, and I settled for the glass door version, hoping I could somehow tack on the cane webbing. Thankfully, the process was not difficult and I learned a lot along the way for any future cane webbing hacks.
This is an extremely simple hack. While it doesn’t leave a flawless inner door (hello protruding raw cane webbing!), it is really easy with just 3 items: glass doored Skruvby cabinet, a roll of cane webbing, and clear, heavy-duty double-sided mounting tape. That’s it!
Let’s hack the Skruvby cabinet with glass doors!
Steps
Assemble the cabinet
1. With my friend’s help, we assembled most of the cabinet, leaving the doors off. Because there was no display model at my local Ikea, I needed time to measure the glass, find the right-sized cane webbing (lots available of Amazon), and consider the type of adhesive to stick the cane onto the door. Some online sources about cane webbing advised wood glue, but not wanting a goopy mess with glue coming through the holes of the cane webbing and me becoming stuck to my furniture, I settled with clear, heavy-duty double-sided mounting tape. More on this later. I purchased the cane webbing and tape, waited for them to arrive, then got to work.
Prepare the cane webbing
2. Thanks to Alexandra Gater’s video, I learned that cane webbing needs to be soaked before it can be unrolled. Otherwise, I’d imagine it would break off into pieces and stay rolled. I let my roll soak in the bathtub for about 25 minutes then fished it out to dry.
3. Credit to my mom, who suggested drying the cane webbing between 2 towels and pressing it down with some binders and heavy flat objects (the middle piece is the lid of my bench/slipper storage unit). I also had a large piece of cardboard (the box the cabinet came in) underneath everything so I don’t ruin my floors. I left it pressed down for about 3 hours between the 2 towels.
4. Fearing that the cane webbing would not dry all the way, and grow mould (maybe? who knows!), I removed the towels around the 3 hour mark and found it had mostly flattened. I put a few binders on top of parts that were still a bit bulgy, and left the cane webbing to dry completely overnight.
Cutting the cane webbing
Dimension of the glass: Let me start off with the dimensions of the glass of each door: 28.25 inches x 8.5 inches
Dimension of cane webbing over the glass (this is per door, so please cut 2 pieces): The tape I purchased was 1 inch wide, and I decided to frame the glass of the doors with tape. So, add 2 inches (1 inch per side) to the dimensions: 30.25 inches x 10.5 inches
5. Carefully measure and mark 2 pieces of cane webbing on the back side with the dimensions 30.25 inches x 10.5 inches EACH. You need 2 pieces of can webbing at this dimension, one for each door.
6. No utility knives needed! Using a pair of good, large scissors, cut your cane webbing pieces. This was not too difficult for me, using the pair of large scissors I usually use to cut cardstock. You’re ready to mount your cane webbing!
Frame the glass with double sided tape
7. Making sure that the back/inside of your door is facing UP (look for the 2 hinge holes which should face up), take some glass cleaner a clean the glass. I used the same natural glass cleaner and wiped down the entire door. You’re about to seal in this side of the glass, so make sure it’s nice and clean! Let the moisture dry off before applying your tape.
8. Adhere your clear, double-sided mounting tape right by the edge of the glass, on the particle board. Take care not to let the tape stick out over the glass, mostly for aesthetic reasons. Make sure to also push out any air bubbles between the cabinet and your tape to ensure better adhesion. With that side, I wasn’t a perfectionist about this at all. The tape is mostly unseen once the cane webbing is applied. I framed the entire glass to ensure adhesion all around.*
*Amateur mistake: I only bought 1 roll of tape measuring 1 inch x 60 inches and ran out even before I finished framing the glass with tape. I literally had to run out to buy 2 more rolls of tape mid-job. With my extremely rough calculations, make sure you have somewhere around 168 inches length of tape for the project. I ended up using 3 rolls of 60 inch long tape, with quite a bit leftover on my last roll.
9. After you frame 1 door, go ahead and remove all the backing to expose the adhesive.
Adhere and trimming the cane webbing
10. The moment we’ve been waiting for! Make sure that the BACK of the cane webbing is facing UP (make sure the “pretty” side will show through the window). I started adhering the long edge on the door handle side first to make sure the cane webbing didn’t get in the way of the holes. Also, I made sure to have the edge of the cane webbing touch the edge of the tape so the tape doesn’t show.
11. Next, adhere a short edge, making sure to stretch the cane webbing so it doesn’t look too saggy. Work on the second long edge, then the last short edge.
12. I honestly couldn’t be bothered to hide the raw edges on the inside, but I made sure to trim off any excess cane webbing covering the hinge and screw holes so that the hinges can be screwed in fully. Make sure you do this so that your doors don’t open wonky once you install the doors. Let us know in the comments if you can think of an easy way to hide the raw edges.
13. Repeat steps 10-12 for your second door, and voila, you have cane webbing doors for your Skruvby cabinet! Install the doors as directed and enjoy!
Costs
Here are the costs for this Ikea Skruvby glass door cabinet hack (in Canadian dollars as of June 2023):
- 1 Ikea Skruvby cabinet with glass doors in black-blue: $149
- 1 roll of cane webbing (21.7 inch x 3.28 feet) from Amazon – the exact product I ordered is no longer listed, so look for ones with similar dimensions: $48.99
- 3 rolls of Scotch Mount double-sided mounting tape from The Home Depot: $9.42 x 3 = $28.26
TOTAL COST OF HACK: $226.25 CAD + applicable taxes
This hack is definitely for easygoing people like me who aren’t too perfectionistic but still want things to look relatively nice. I hope you get to hack your own Skruvby cabinet, or try out this hack on other similar furniture units!
dine + twine 