IKEA Semi-Hack: Nightstands

Michael and I are slowly working on our bedroom.  Our most recent addition is a nightstand for each of us.  My parents bought me two of these from IKEA for my birthday.  I had seen this post on Pinterest where this woman took these super cheap pine dressers and turned them into really pretty nightstands so I decided to take a stab at it!  I took hurricane sandy as an opportunity to get working on these.  We are going for a gray/blue color scheme in our room with lots of neutral colors and pops of yellow.  Therefore, we opted for Classic Gray from Minwax as our stain of choice.  

Since I am still new to this and do not remember to take before or in process pictures yet, you just get to see the (semi) finished product!  Take a look at IKEA's site if you want to see how plain they were beforehand.

We LOVE them!

Since Michael's side is a little darker, I could not get any natural light pictures of his side, I did not just intentionally leave him out :)

I think the neutral colors of the lights go really great with the gray.

We really like the weathered look that the stain created.

All the knobs are from Hobby Lobby at 50% off!

There are still more improvements to come, one of which is almost finished. Hint: it has to do with the inside of the drawers!  We also plan on adding a finished top and perhaps something to the bottom since it has that weird lip piece.  What do you think?  Our bedroom is slowly coming together, here are some more items on the list:

• Headboard
• 2nd Dresser
• Wall Art
• New Curtains

Thanks for stopping by!

Erin

  

IKEA Hack: Storage Bench

I am pretty excited about this hack that we did with a $2 scrap piece from IKEA.  Michael has been using this IKEA shelf/box thing as a nightstand for a few years now.  He found it in the damaged/scrap section.  We decided to turn it into a storage bench.  We really wanted one for the end of our bed, and while this is a bit too small for our king size bed - it will do for now!  And in the future we plan on turning it into a toy box :)

Here is what we started with, basically just a box with no top.

Then Michael created some legs using 2x4 and some legs we found at Home Depot.  He also created a top for the opening out of plywood.  At this point I was pretty impressed already.

Then I did one coat of primer and two coats of paint - Bahama Breeze I believe - but honestly I am too tired to go down and look :)  I also picked out a fabric and did my first ever upholstery project, however we have decided that the fabric isn't really what we want so we are now on the hunt for something with more yellow in it.  I didn't get any photos at these stages, but I did get some from last night when Michael added the crown molding.  This is an in action, right before bed shot.

And finally, we have the finished product!  

Here is the bench in the room - I think the color was a bold choice but I really enjoy it!

This picture is a bit darker for some reason but I thought it was cool with the light literally streaming in the window.

Here is a little closer up picture of the fabric. I really like the fabric but I don't like it next to the bedspread.

Let's do a quick before and after:

Pretty awesome if I do say so myself!  And now we have a storage bench for a room and a future toy box for any kids that come along.  When we get our new fabric I think we will add an extra layer of foam to make it a little thicker on top - I just was not sure how much to buy at first.  

And this turned out so great that when I was at IKEA this weekend, I found another but slightly larger piece of wood EXACTLY the same.  Coffee table here we come!

Designer Bookshelf

Okay, so I am definitely the first one to admit that I am really not very good with matching, creativeness, or design, but I really enjoy what we did with the bookshelf Michael's mom gave us in exchange for cleaning out things from his childhood room.  We have a wall in our living room between the two windows that was just dying for a tall bookshelf and now we have one less wall to hang things on (side note: we have almost nothing on our walls and we have been in our house for 5 months now).  This bookshelf worked perfectly and just one year ago I would have stacked it full of every book that could fit and call it a day, but now after a year of some intense design blog reading I have been getting more inspired and Michael and I created some pretty cool displays on the shelves with things we already had!  There are still lots of books, but only those that made the cut after much scrutiny. Also, please excuse the picture quality - I need to a) charge the battery on my nice camera and b) take some time to learn all the awesome things I can do with said nice camera.

Full view, still need something on the top.

 Top two shelves, with our wedding wine in the back.

The bottom two shelves have some classics aka those books you read for school and hated it but maybe someday you will read them again and appreciate.  We also have some LOTR and C.S. Lewis in there.

Harry Potter is of course on top, complete with nerdy 3-D glasses from the movie :) and yes we DO know that we are missing some books - those are to come!

Currently reading section with the engagement present from my sisters and our ring box from our wedding.

Michael's beloved Game of Thrones (I just watch the show).

And finally, the history section since Michael is a history buff, and people might think we are intellectual.

So there you have it, not exactly designer quality but much better than anything I have had before! I think it needs a bit more color but I think that is a project for down the road and it definitely needs something on top, but we can't decide what that is yet - any suggestions??