As I've mentioned about two and a half thousand times, I'm a big traveller and I love to bring scalps back from my travels. One of those scalps is banknotes from various countries, even ones that no longer exist.

For many years, though, I've wondered what to do with my stacked banknotes. I didn’t want to damage them in any way; I thought of making a smaller divider or a painting. Then, one day, I came up with a simple yet creative idea: putting them on the standard KALLAX shelving unit in my living room. It seems simple, but it wasn’t so simple in the end.

I enjoyed putting the banknotes on KALLAX way less than I expected. The notes turned out to be almost like living organisms, constantly shifting when I moved them in any way or even took a breath in the other corner of the room. I got the idea of holding them in place with tiny pieces of sticky rubber. This was a great idea, so all the bills have tiny white dots underneath them.

It took about an hour to carefully lay out my collection, but it didn't end there. It was important to cover the banknotes with something; sticky rubber is not miraculous. Having grown up in the nineties, I remember very well the work desks covered by glass. So I bought a piece of glass.

The glass was cut from a 4-millimetre-thick block and cost only about 35 EUR. However, the top of the KALLAX is 147 by 39 centimetres, and I bought a 147 by 40-centimetre glass desk. Why?

I live in a flat with crooked walls, and KALLAX has never fully adhered to the wall. I carefully calculated how many extra millimetres I needed to hide the wall's unevenness, so I bought the desk exactly 10 millimetres wider.

Handling the desk itself wasn’t fun either. Every fingerprint shows up on it. Plus, the desk isn’t lightweight, so I had to use my winter leather gloves to avoid transferring fingerprints to it.

By the way, I ordered the glass desk as a personal pick-up because the company is in the village next to my parents. That way, I didn't have to worry about transport via courier.

The result is a very nice desk that’s right under my Sand wall.

The only issue is that I have more banknotes, I still travel, and my KALLAX is already full. I’ll have to come up with another idea very soon!