Dresser Update

So our master bedroom is getting pretty close to completion....that is with the exception of no headboard, magical endtables that we will probably never find, and unhemmed curtains...so all and all not bad :)
Anyho, we recently finished updating our Ikea dresser...I guess you could say this is my first true Ikea Hack...yippee! Boy are we ever glad its finished (and still in one piece as we refrained from kicking it several times while remaking it :D )


Soooo....here's what we began with:


The Ikea Hemnes 8 drawer dresser (ours was a honey colour, which they dont actually make anymore):

so we wanted it white...and didn't feel like forking out the $300 to get a new one...soooo we decided to paint ours.

I have to say this dresser was probably the most difficult piece we've worked with yet. It involved a bunch of steps and we dealt with a bunch of challenges after each.

First thing we did was sand the dresser down completely.

We took apart all of the drawers so we only had to paint the drawer fronts.

We then primed the entire piece and all drawer fronts with an oil based primer. This helps when you are trying to get the paint to level-out better, however for us it didn't work too well. We ended up stripping the entire top of the dresser and trying again with a water-based primer. After that, we sanded the entire piece again, and started with our paint.

We used "Simply White" in a satin finish by Benjamin Moore- which is the same colour as our trim and other white furniture- so we kept it consistent.

We constantly seemed to have dust and little blue particles from our drop cloth sticking to our pieces, so we were continuously wiping the pieces off and painting again, and again and again.

(Sorry for the lack of pictures on our progress, but I completely forgot to take some during our frustrations! lol)

After 3 coats of paint, we ended up with this:

We changed up the hardware a bit...

and we're pretty happy with how it turned out!

Dresser complete! We're almost there with this room friends! Up next- headboard re-do!

Ikea Hackers

Ian has owned this dresser forever. His isn't even this colour. They dont make his colour anymore (its more of a pine/honey colour).

 

I remember when he bought it, and I tried to convince him to buy the matching headboard and bed frame. Did not happen. Years later he wanted the headboard and bedframe and they didn't make it with wood anymore (one of those "I told you so" moments that you tell them with your eyes because you know if you say it outloud they'll get mad at you). He then had to buy pieces that were pretty close to matching the set, but are not made out of wood.

It looks fine and had worked well with our decorating for years, but we need a change.

Since we are currently in the process of re-decorating our master bedroom, we've decided that the current bedroom furniture will eventually go in our "spare" room for the time being.

I figured I could just paint the room a neutral colour and keep it boring basic, until I saw this amazing post from Centsational girl. I am totally doing this to our dresser:

You could easily paint it black with white stripes or any other colour! Totally love.

To see how she did it, click here.

Only catch is to try and find one of these dressers used. New they are $300.00. Thats a lot to spend on something you are going to re-paint anyways!

Funny enough we have this dresser too.

Its from my old bedroom set and I was planning on just getting rid of it....maybe not anymore...

To see more of this dresser transformation, click here.

We all have Ikea stuff sitting around that we grow tired of, have had since teens or that doesn't go with our "grown-up" decor anymore.

So I came across this site. Its the answer to all Ikea re-do's. Its the Hacker site. Ikea Hackers. Love it.

Just trying to think of what other Ikea pieces I own now, that I can totally flip! So fun!



Ikea Glam Monogram

In honour of the Royal Wedding coming up this week (between Prince William and Kate Middleton) I wanted to post about someting 'regal'....or at least somewhat 'royal' in terms of decor...lol. What came to mind? Monograms!

Last night I was watching an episode of CityLine that I PVR's and I thought they had a neat segement on how to take something old (or inexpensive) and make it personalized.

I had seen this desk at Ikea before:

wasn't crazy about it. It was nice, but nothing special I thought.

Now, see what designer Leigh-Ann Allaire Perrault did to transform this desk to make it unique:

All she used was a can of paint, changed the hardware and added a monogram. As well, some neat accessories and a very interesting chair.  See how she did it here.

Although, I dont tend to be someone who has done a lot of monogramming (is that a word? lol!), it seems to be popping up everywhere:

OR, if you'd rather not monogram, you could add a few letters elsewhere ;)

Even Sarah Richardson's jumped on this bandwagon:

I think it looks so cute in a kids room to feature a wall with a monogram of some sort.
My wonderful friend Shawna's mom is an incredible artist and painted this monogram for Shawna when she had her beautiful baby girl. Its perfect! Im sure Peyton loves it ;)

Here are some other adorable baby/kid room ideas (a few of which I may be keeping in mind for the future!)

Monogramed change table:

Now....to think of something to monogram ;)

Finally...Organization!

Recently I was telling a good friend about my mission to find a piece of furniture to use for filing, for our newly updated/renovated office. We want something that will last long, look great and not break the bank.

We had seen a "filing system" at Ikea that looked ok, but wasn't exactly what we wanted and was still going to cost a pretty penny. We debated on it for weeks, but came to the conclusion that if we were willing to spend a few hundred dollars at Ikea on a piece that wasn't exactly what we wanted, we might as well look for something else.

A friend suggested "Crate and Barrel" to me, and since we dont have one in town I hadn't really thought of it before. We had checked a variety of other stores, including Urban Barn, etc but none of them carried office filing system units.

After searching their website and seeing a piece of furniture that looked perfect, we decided to make the drvie down to the closest Crate and Barrel store to check it out.

We walked into the store and immediately LOVED everything in sight! Unfortunately most of the pieces are much more than we can afford, but the filing system was perfect. It wasn't exactly budget friendly, but its well made, solid wood, and we knew it would last a long time and get tons of use. We were sold!

Once the piece is delivered and in the room, I will post pictures of the final product :) Yea for organization!