Yesterday, I showed off our living room and dining room, and revealed at how moving a little bit of furniture can transform a room. In the dining room, you may have noticed that  our Ikea hand me down cabinets looked a little more classy. That is because I lined the back of them with some fabric I found at JoAnn Fabrics for 40% off!

This is a project that I wanted to do for ages, and while I knew it would be a transformation, I cannot believe how much better these cabinets look.

I got a little help from A Thoughtful Place, and the quick tutorial on how to line cabinets with fabric. Now that I kind of had an idea of how to do this, I got to work.

First, I did the hardest part of the project, and measured the fabric to fit exactly to the back of the shelves. I did have a bit of an allowance because I thought it would be better to finish the edges to avoid fraying and also to make the edges perfectly straight.

As most of you know, I do not own a sewing machine, so it was time for Hem Tape again. Although, this time,  I had to use the non iron hem tape. The fabric I used is indoor outdoor fabric, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to iron it.

There are several no iron hem tapes out there (Fix it Fast). They work just like a double stick tape. First, you lay the tape where you want it on the fabric. Remove the backing. Then, fold over. It is very similar to iron tape, except NO IRON.

Once everything was measured and straight, I lined the fabric up, and hot glued it to the back of the cabinet with a large dot of hot glue in each corner.

NOTE: I could only do half of each cabinet at a time because of the shelf being in the way, so I only needed four large dots of glue. However, if you were using more fabric, or lining the back of an entire shelf, I would use more glue around the perimeter to make sure it stays in place.

Finally, I loaded the shelves back up.

 

I am so happy with this transformation! It was easy, inexpensive, and really made a big difference.