Thursday, February 14, 2013

Ikea Rast Makeover

A while back I saw a pin on Pinterest for a Rast Hack. I fell in love and when the need for a bedside table in our guest room came up I jumped on it! Like always the box sat and sat but I finally got around to transforming a boring little dresser into a fabulous bedside table! Here is how it went:

Before:                                   After:



I took this from A Charming Nest as my inspiration:


The unfortunate thing was, it actually costs a lot to do what they did! It makes it a pretty pricey bedside table, especially for a guest room. So, I cut a lot of the extras out and did the bare minimum.


I started with filling the holes, I wanted a single knob and got some beautiful glass ones from Pottery Barn about a year ago for next to nothing thanks to some great email promo they had for $10 off any purchase!

Next up was attaching lattice to the drawer fronts, I opted to add this to just the 
drawers rather than the sides as the biggest cost savings.

Glued and nailed into place! There might have been an issue with attempting to put the brad nails into the wrong nail gun. The details are a little fuzzy though. ;-) This was followed with a couple coats of white paint, I didn't manage to take any photos of that part of the process, sorry!


The pine board for the top is ready for some stain, I got some small 
trim for the sides to finish it off nicely.

My first stain choice was too light so I had to run out and pick something different. 
I am glad I did, I would have been disappointed if I had just left it with the first.


 All painted and new holes drilled for the glass knobs!


This is what has been next to the bed since we put it in this room, that mess of wires 
and cables is our internet and satellite tv stuff. It is ridiculous...


And here is the after! Functional storage for office supplies and
much more beautiful than the mess that was there!


 Close up, it isn't a perfect match to the furniture (Zach's old nursery set) but it looks great. I am thrilled with how it turned out!

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Valentine's Day

I love each holiday because it is time to start over with decorations and gives me a chance to craft! Here is what I have so far for Valentine's Day:




 

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

The super popular phrase "Repurposing"

Repurposing is a big word thrown all around Pinterest. I guess this post falls under it, I bought something to use in a way that was different than its original purpose and then went one step further and went in a different direction than my original intent.

I purchased two Ikea Spice Racks (Bekvam) at least a year ago, if not longer with the intent on using them to hold cutting boards. They didn't fit inside out cupboard like the example on Pinterest I had seen so they sat and they sat and they sat and they sat. Meanwhile, I had been trying to come up with a solution to our weird toilet problem in our guest/hall bath for a long time. It seems to us that they slipped up on some measurements when placing the plumbing in that room in the slab, the water to the sink is in an odd location and the toilet footprint for a 14 inch rough in. Perhaps they meant to do that but it baffles us as to why they would. Not realizing it was a 14 inch rough in, we bought a 12 inch since that is standard and found ourselves with quite a gap from the wall to the tank. Not willing to spend the extra few hundred dollars to get a toilet that would sit closer to the wall, we decided to live with it. Unfortunately, I hate looking at that gap. So...I pulled out the Ikea rack and decided it would be the perfect solution! That was 6 months ago...sigh.

A blog I love and read weekly is Young House Love and they have a segment from time to time called, "Dude, get on that." So feeling inspired yesterday, Zach and I 'got on that.' Here are the before and afters for the bathroom:

 My temporary solution...


 A huge gap!


 Installed!


It looks so much better!


So, how about the second one I had purchased? It has been put to good use in Zach's room, I let him pick the colors (with some Mom persuasion) and he painted a lot of it himself. We sit at the foot of his bed for bedtime stories and the books seem to just pile up (story of my life, piles of papers and such everywhere). Here are his before and afters:

 The pile on his toy chest...


 His red and blue shelf in place! Now they are there for his resting time in the
afternoons as well since he is our crazy little 4 year old reader!



 Stocked and ready for tonight. :-)


The box all cleaned off, it is amazing how it can make me feel more calm.