Ikea Hacking

Have you heard about Ikea Hacking? It's not new, but I had been thinking about it a lot this past weekend as I put together two lovely pieces of Ikea furniture. To "hack" an Ikea product means to either repurpose all or part of an Ikea item (make something totally new) or just modify an existing item (add some personal flair). It's very cool, and there's a whole blog about it right here on Blogger: ikeahacker.blogger.com.

I actually found out about Ikea Hacking while I was looking up info on upcycling, the making of non-disposable items out of discarded material. They're not the exact same thing, but you can see how they're related. In any case, I'm wondering if any of you out there know much about upcycling and/or what you all think about the term "upcycling" versus "recycling." I know that "upcycling" has a genealogy (though I don't know what it is). I guess I'm just wary of the the implications of the "up" prefix--like the new product is inherently better than whatever is is made out of. And, sure--non-disposable things are generally better than disposable, but why do we have to bring these judgements into it?

Relatedly, I also feel compelled to state for the record that I hate those "I am not a plastic bag" bags. They're almost condescending. And smell of self-congratulations for consumerism masked as politics. And they're ugly.

The end.


Ikea cat hack!