🌿 How to Turn an IKEA Cabinet into a Terrarium

🌿 How to Turn an IKEA Cabinet into a Terrarium

This is a project I’ve been thinking about for the last four years — which, for an Aries, feels like an eternity. 🔥♈️
 But because I’ve spent most of my life making impulsive decisions, I promised myself to actually think things through before acting.

Well, looking at this terrarium now, I know it’s the result of a long (and borderline obsessive) research process.
 And yet… of course, I made a few mistakes. 😅

 

 

THE MISTAKES

Mistake #1:
 The biggest one was that I miscalculated the size of the bottom tank — made it about 15 cm taller than it should’ve been. Which is a lot considering the cabinet’s total dimensions (IKEA Milsbo specs here).
 That forced me to build the landscape in separate pieces instead of as one structure.

 

(Landscape = the vertical structure covering three of the four interior walls, made of polyurethane foam sculpted after drying, coated with substrate and moss to simulate the base of a tropical forest — soil, wood, rocks, all of it.)

So I worked on the tank walls first, then on each glass panel (the sides and back).
 I had to be careful not to “foam up” more than the top third of each panel, since the tank sits below — otherwise it wouldn’t fit back into the cabinet.

Mistake #2:
 While deep in my creative “foaming frenzy,” I managed to crack one of the glass panels.

It was Friday, around 4 p.m., after a full week of measuring, cutting, foaming, siliconing — and all of it in the middle of my living room.
 After a few seconds of total despair, I called my friend George from Aquadec to ask if he had replacement glass.
 He didn’t, but came up with a better idea — replacing the panel with dibond (a composite material).
 Perfect solution, since I was planning to cover the exterior with black film anyway, to hide the foam from view.

Long story short: by Saturday afternoon, the new panel was ready, and I could keep working through the weekend. 🙌

Mistake #3:
 This one was just poor planning (and a bit of laziness 😅).
 To set up the fog machine and grow lights, I needed a hole in the cabinet’s “ceiling” for the power cords to go through. IKEA didn’t think of that — so we had to make one ourselves.
 Since we didn’t have a metal-cutting hole saw (and couldn’t be bothered to drive to a hardware store), Mihai used a drill and a random screw for metal that we found in the toolbox.
 The result was… less than aesthetic.
 I covered it with black vinyl, and luckily it’s hidden behind the TV, but I know it’s there. And it haunts me.
 PS: one cutting board died during the drilling process. ⚰️

Mistake #4:
 For dramatic effect (and humidity), I wanted to add a fog machine.
 So I planned the setup carefully — the fogger had to sit in a water container hidden in the lower part of the terrarium, integrated into the landscape.
 I passed the cable through the foam and the “infamous ceiling hole,” masked everything, and…
 The result? A lot of noise for almost no fog. 😂
 The fogger’s power is ridiculously low for the terrarium’s air volume — it produces a tiny puff of mist around the container and that’s it.
 I’m seriously considering removing it altogether.

 

 

LESSONS LEARNED

So yes — the mistakes weren’t tragic, but avoiding them would’ve made the process way smoother and faster.
 Still, I’m glad they happened — next time I’ll know better.

 

 

🛠️ The Transformation Process

Here’s how I turned an IKEA Milsbo cabinet into a terrarium:

  • Disassembled the cabinet.

  • Covered three (out of four) vertical walls of the base tank with polyurethane foam — leaving the front panel transparent.

  • Inserted wood pieces and small pots into the foam to hold plants later on.

  • Applied black vinyl to the outside of the glass panels.

  • Replaced the broken side panel with dibond → foamed → shaped → sealed.

  • After drying, cut the foam to mimic a vertical forest wall.


Then I coated the foam generously with adhesive, pressed in cocoa peat, and let it dry.

Once all pieces were ready, I assembled the whole puzzle — placed the tank at the bottom and rebuilt the cabinet around it.
 After mounting the walls and ceiling, I filled in the seams with foam, trimmed, glued, and re-coated with cocoa peat.

Then came cleaning: vacuumed all foam and peat residue, wiped down the tank with alcohol, and prepped the substrate.

 

 

🌱 The Substrate

I started with a 5 cm layer of Stratum (a porous volcanic soil, originally used for aquariums).
 It’s commonly called a “drainage layer,” but technically it acts as a moisture buffer — as long as you don’t overwater it.
 Luckily, the tank wall is transparent, so I can monitor the moisture level easily.

Then came my aroid mix, made in-house: cocoa peat, perlite, bark, pumice, vermiculite, a bit of Stratum, leca, and moss — plus some decorative stones.

One of the rocks (a Sansibar aquarium stone) has holes filled with moss where I planted small cuttings.

For watering, I used boiled and cooled water with hydrogen peroxide (1:10 ratio).
 After soaking everything, I placed a hygrometer + thermometer inside to monitor humidity and temperature.

 

 

🌿 The Planting Moment

Important note: I didn’t remove any plant from its nursery pot — makes it way easier to handle if something goes wrong later.

 

Because I’m obsessed with shingling plants, I started with those.
 (Shinglers = tropical epiphytes that climb vertical surfaces, attaching tightly with aerial roots. Their leaves overlap like scales.)

The lineup:

  • 3 Marcgravia species — sintenisii, umbellata, El Coca

  • 6 Rhaphidophora species — puberula variegata, korthalsii variegata, tenuis silver, cryptantha, tenuis, hayi

  • Cuttings of Pothos scandens

  • 2 Syngonium erythrophyllum (botanical form)

  • 2 Anthurium — polyschistum and papillilaminum

  • Philodendron Burle Marx Fantasy cuttings

  • 6 Begonia species — sp. Daun Hitam, sp. Sumatra, sp. Julau, amphioxus, brevirimosa, darthvaderiana × amphioxus

  • 5 Piper species — sp. Ecuador, sp. Indonesia, argyrites, crocatum, parmatum

  • 1 Biophytum (RIP — didn’t make it 💀)

  • 1 Ludisia discolor (terrestrial orchid)

  • 1 Monstera obliqua Peru cutting

  • 1 Dischidia (still growing in its original snail shell setup 🐚)

  • 1 Vanilla planifolia orchid

I wrapped the plant bases in moist sphagnum moss and watered generously — both the substrate and vertical walls.
 I also used some live sphagnum and moss collected from Băneasa Forest (which, let’s say, didn’t love the transition, but I’m not giving up yet 😅).

 

 

The First Weeks

Within a week, terrarium mold appeared — totally normal.
It’s what specialists call “terrarium mold,” a temporary stage during the first 3–4 weeks as the ecosystem stabilizes and springtails (tiny soil-cleaning insects) colonize the substrate.

Obviously, I didn’t have the patience to wait that long, so I sprayed everything with hydrogen peroxide and got rid of the mold in about a week.

 

 

6 Weeks Later…

It’s been a month and a half since I finished it, and most plants are thriving in 97–98% humidity.
 Some lost leaves, a few Pipers had root issues, but all bounced back and are now producing new growth.

The newest leaves — grown entirely inside the terrarium — are significantly larger than the old ones.
 Many plants have already attached their aerial roots to wood, walls, or substrate.
 And those roots? Absolute poetry. Thick, fluffy, healthy perfection. ❤️

(video with current terrarium)

And yes — since I planted so many species, the initial “biophilic design” concept went completely out the window.
 I basically spent two weeks turning an IKEA cabinet into… another propagation station. 😅

But honestly?
I regret nothing. 🌿

 

 

That’s all for now, friends.
 Promise I’ll be back with updates soon.

🌱 Green fingers crossed! 🌱