IKEA hack

I heart IKEA.  Always have.  There is a sort of cult following of IKEA that I totally need to join. I’m already mixing the Kool Aid to serve alongside IKEA Swedish meatballs and am considering changing my name to Grundtal. 

I recently came across Aubrey and Lindsay’s blog where Lindsay did an awesome IKEA hack inspired by Style At Home.  A quick Pinterest search brought up some awesome hack ideas.

Like this one:

http://www.houzz.com/ikea-rast

Or this one:

The Paris Apartment

These dressers are pretty small but perfect as nightstands.  They’re solid wood and only $34.99!  Time for me to give it a shot and this was the look I tried to achieve.

Style At Home September 2008 (image from http://aubreyandlindsay.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-things-began.html)

Since my nightstands looked like this I didn’t have much to lose:

From a distance it may not look bad but get up close and you’ll see it was Kai’s chew toy when he was a puppy (so yeah we’ve been living with these in this condition for almost 6 years).
Don’t judge me.

I picked up 2 Rast Dressers from IKEA.  I’m pretty sure Rast translates to ‘awesome potential’ in English because while they may look like this out of the box, they’re actually solid wood and begging to be turned into something amazeballs:

First I had to assemble these bad boys. 

Anyone who has assembled anything from IKEA knows why they include this picture in their directions:

I used some leftover primer and trim paint from our bathroom renovation (which I promise I’ll show you as soon we figure out how to fix the awful permanent damage our glass contractor did in the room yesterday) and some leftover conditioner and stain from our DIY reclaimed wood console table project.  I primed (1 coat), painted (3 coats), conditioned (never skip this step), stained (2 coats) and poly’ed (3 coats, sanded in between) on these suckers.  I tossed the ugly knobs that came with the dresser and added some antique brass ring pulls. 

         

                    

It was that easy.  A solid wood nightstand for $34.99 + the cost of hardware!

Shared with: Between Naps On The Porch Beyond the Picket Fence

Image via