Ikea Rast Hack: A Nightstand Makeover

When a brand new Ikea opened up in Kansas City a few months ago, it became THE cool place to visit.  I grew up about 15 minutes from an Ikea, so I didn’t quite get the craze until my husband and I visited for my first time as an adult.  Let’s just say we walked out with a lot less money in our pockets and with a trunk full of affordable and super cute furniture/decor items! Our biggest purchase was this Ikea Ektorp sectional which we LOVE.  It’s super comfy, fits perfectly in our space, and it’s slipcovered for easy cleaning (although let’s be real, I’ve yet to actually wash all the covers since we got a few months ago.  Maybe that can just wait for when we have kids?).  We were pretty sold on Ikea after our successful couch purchase.

Next up on my Ikea list was the famous Ikea Rast dresser.  The master bedroom in our new house was a bit bigger, and we needed bigger nightstands to fill the space around our bed. These little dressers are only $35 a pop, so I figured they would be a great, inexpensive way to try my hand at my very first Ikea Hack!

This is the Ikea Rast dresser in all of its untreated pine glory (and exactly how it looked when we got it).  Noooooot my style.

After hubby assembled both of the dressers (I won’t even try to explain that process here.  Ikea furniture assembly is a mystery to me), I got to working! As much as I loved the many Ikea Rast Hacks I’d seen that involved adding additional pieces of lattice wood or a larger piece of wood on top, my carpentry skills are seriously limited. I also don’t have much experience with wood staining, and didn’t think pine would be a good wood to start with.  I wanted a way to upgrade these dressers that involved nothing more than a paintbrush and some other supplies I had on hand.  We might add more someday, but a paint upgrade is always a good first step!

The materials I used are below.  I also used a Kilz Latex Primer we had in the garage (which is so covered in paint and drips that including it in this picture wouldn’t show you anything!).  You could use any primer you have on hand or even be brave and try without primer. The paintbrush below is my FAVORITE…I have painted TONS of projects using this Wooster paintbrush, and I highly recommend it if you have little hands that get tired after hours of painting!

When I was in college, I found a cheap and easy way to create a distressed texture when I paint: using multiple coats in different colors and then sanding them off.  I’m sure somebody discovered this long ago, but I have about 25 picture frames done in this style and love the way it looks.  Typically, I start with a primer (or no primer at all for smaller items like picture frames), paint a coat or two of a darker color, top with a lighter color, and then lightly sand the top paint to let the darker color below show through in certain places.  This technique is quick and easy, and I thought it would work well on these dressers.

I started by removing all the drawers then priming each of them and the dresser base.  Pine is notorious for soaking in primer and paint like nobody’s business, so I did two coats to cover up the light pine color that I don’t love.  I let this dry 24 hours, then started on the actual painting.

I started with a medium tone of gray by Behr called Anonymous.  This is the same shade we painted in our dining room and the dresser in our bedroom, and I love how much darker and moodier it is than the rest of our house.  Since this would eventually be covered by white,  I just did one quick coat using a sample pot we had in the garage.

I let that dry 24 hours (okay, more like 4-5 days), and started the next coat.   I wanted the dressers to be a cool shade of white that would fit well with our neutral gray-rustic wood bedroom.  I had two little sample pots of Behr Silver Drop and Behr Irish Mist (both light gray/white neutral shades) from when we were painting our main level, so I mixed them, called it good, and got to painting! These two colors are the lighter shades on the paint chip that has our bedroom’s wall color (Behr Dolphin Fin), so I was pretty confident they would match well.  I also apparently forgot to take a picture of this step pre-distressing, but you can get the idea from the upcoming pictures!

Now comes my favorite part: distressing! This  part is always much more fun than the prepping and painting because you see quick results.  I tried three different techniques on this piece before finding one I liked:

• Sandpaper: I started by lightly sanding the white paint with a relatively fine grade of sandpaper to expose some of the gray and give it more of a textured look, but the paint wasn’t budging and I wanted something that would make it more obviously textured.
• Antiquing Glaze: I used a Rust-oleum Decorative Glaze on our gray dresser and some picture frames and loved it.  However, I tested it on a small section of the Rast dresser’s side (something I always recommend before painting a bigger piece), and I didn’t really like the effect.  Instead of looking like a faded dark brown like it did on my gray dresser, it added an orange tone to the white (definitely not ideal in our cool, neutral bedroom). I’d highly recommend this glaze for other projects but it did not work here.
• Steel Wool: After two failed attempts with my favorite distressing methods, I had to get creative.  I grabbed a steel wool scrubby from under our kitchen sink and started scratching/sanding/rubbing it across the dresser’s surface.  It actually broke through the white paint and even added it’s own gray texture to the dresser as I worked.  SUCCESS!

Lastly, we added some hardware from D. Lawless Hardware.  I knew I liked this style of cup pull after lots of Pinterest stalking and online exploring.  This store has great prices and I highly recommend them!

I’m still thinking of adding another coat of watered-down paint to give these a slightly softer look.  But when your husband starts complaining about having nowhere to put his phone at night because the nightstands have been in the garage for two weeks…sometimes you have to press pause and let your perfectionist side rest for a while.

I really like how these turned out and think they fit perfectly with our bed and the overall feel of our bedroom.  Two years ago, I would have let these dressers sit by our bed unpainted for months, scared to somehow ruin them when I didn’t even like them in the first place! I’m learning to trust my own style and take risks with things in our home.  In the words of The Nester,  it doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.  And even in their (somewhat) unfinished imperfection, I think I’ll call my first Ikea Rast Hack a beautiful success.

Is there anything in your home or space that you have been putting off changing even though you don’t like it? What would it take for you to be brave and take the leap?

 I’m linking up toJust a Girl And Her Blog, Life on Virginia Street, Miss Mustard Seed,  Remodelaholics Anonymous, Cedar Hill Farmhouse, Cupcakes and Crinoline, Home Stories A to Z, Sand and Sisal, Kleinworth & Co, Coastal Charm, Between Naps On The Porch, A Fresh Start On A Budget, Mad In Crafts, New Nostalgia, Funky Polka Dot Giraffe, Mabey She Made It, Memories By The Mile, Ladybug Blessings, Hope Studios, Posed Perfection, Common Ground, Anderson and Grant, The Charm of Home, Dwellings Amaze Me Monday, Sugar Bee Crafts, The Shabby Nest, The Painted Drawer, Meet-up Monday, The Girl Creative, and Live Randomly Simple.  Check out those blogs for more great Ikea Hacks and DIY projects!