DIY BEDSIDE TABLES FROM IKEA

i finally finished them: two bedside tables/dressers for our master bedroom. each is an ikea rast— a pretty popular item for re-doing, as seen here, here, and here.

the price is great and the quality is pretty good (it is pine). i like the two-tone look that i saw others try, but i didn't want to stain the wood. i wanted the outside to be gray—almost the same as the walls, but just a touch darker. nothing too loud, because the headboard is pretty bold already.

after much deliberation, i went with a benjamin moore gray mixed at sherwin williams. the white is just left over from our trim.

with ikea, the toughest part is putting the piece together with the cheapie allen wrench tools.

then it was just sanding, tacking, priming, painting, and varnishing in various repeating stages whenever i could sneak down to the basement in half-hour increments. then, weeks later, i brought them up!

it is nice to have drawers for socks, hand lotion (my hands crack and bleed in the winter! eek!), glasses, and a few choice books. i would have loved to add some special knobs like these or these, but i needed 12, so anything more than a few bucks would get expensive pretty quickly. i ended up with some simple ones from home depot that i bought in a bulk pack. i'm happy, and ben's happy. grrrrreat!

wow, it looks really empty. i need to add some lamps and maybe some accessories to style up the dressers, like in rebecca's post. the interwebs is an endless source of ideas.

the next big project is to sand, stain, and varnish the kitchen table that bert made a new top for! i literally can't wait, but i think i'm going to have to. not much time between now and Christmas for house projects.

stay warm!