Ikea Hacks for the Bedroom or Snappy Dressers

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I am currently in the planning stages of my bedroom. And I'm trying to do it as cheaply as possible. Enter the Ikea Hacks! One of the best things about Ikea furniture is that you can enter the name of the piece + hack into google and you get a ton of ideas!

Here's the Tarva:

Simple, pine dresser. To get the dresser at the top, she sawed off a bit of leg and spray painted it gold. Then painted the rest white and bought new brass knobs!

Here's another hack, but in the campaign style:

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Here's another hack of the same dresser, they used wooden rosettes from Michaels as the drawer pulls.

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And this is a different dresser from Ikea, the Rast, painted awesomely:

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But wait, there's more! I saw this amazing lamp as well! Made from a shaving mirror and a clamp light!

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And this one, too!

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All this talk about Ikea has me craving meatballs. Which is not at all unusual for me...

Daisies are a girls best friend.

I really want this pendant for the kitchen. It's 23" in diameter, so maybe a touch big. Or glamourously unexpected.

Can I help you find anything?

 

I had been waiting patiently for my upper cabinet. It was $200 and I was waiting until I could use cash. Or change from my change jar. Luckily, at my last IKEA jaunt, I found this in the AS-IS section. Someone had purchased it, put it on legs and then returned it. And it didn't close properly. And I wanted white instead of birch. But 50% off?! How could I pass it up?

I brought it home and it took John and I about two hours of slowly disassembling each part, then reassembling it to see where the trouble was. IKEA has all of their instructions online, so we finally just looked at all the pictures and compared each and every drawing. Voila! The spring mechanism was installed in the wrong spot! We removed it and installed the mechanism correctly and it's good as new.

 

In this photo, you can see how it opens. Why on earth would anyone put legs on it and try to use it as a floor cabinet? As soon as you opened it, you'd have to crawl underneath the door to see anything. I'm so glad I know the IKEA catalog inside-out and upside-down. Especially the Varde series. The employees tried to tell me it comes with legs. No. No. Never. No. 

Can't wait 'til both boys are in school. I am totally working there. Come by and ask me questions. In fact, do that now.

Cabinet Fever.

I recently received $250 from the universe and set about to get my IKEA on. I knew the piece I wanted and was all ready for Saturday, when John and I would head to IKEA to get the giant butcher block cabinet. It was $329, but with my free extra money, it was now affordable. I went to the website to see if it was in stock, the last time I was there I didn't see any assembled. And there were none. Not at any of the 4 IKEA's in Southern California. Ratsass.

We decided to go anyway and see if something else would work. Thank gods for the drop-in play area! John and I wandered around, me feeling like NOTHING else would work, and John trying to figure out how to make me happy. We ended up with this:

Which is like what I wanted but without the drawers. (It was $249. Coincidence? I think the universe knew what I needed better than I did). It's actually pretty roomy. I had trouble filling it. Now it houses Lego and puzzles and stuff. So it's in easy reach for the boys.

John put it together last night. He's an IKEA expert because the TV show he works on uses a ton of it. He's put together entire closets. Here's what I found in the kitchen when I went to help:

 

Virgos. You can't live with 'em.

So now I have miles of counter space.

I don't know if you can see in the photo, but our dishwasher is at the end with a butcher block on top. We're actually going to remove the Formica top on the dishwasher and replace it with an old oak table top piece to make a butcher block island. It'll be cut to size and routed to fit. 

John didn't want to keep the table top. But I said, "NO! We can cut it down for something in the future!" He thought I was crazy. Who's crazy now?

Still me.

Help me IKEA, you're my only hope.

From this:

To this:

Hooks, Check 'Em Out.

I feel like my like would be a lot more organized if I just had more hooks. They are all over my house. My kitchen has hooks on the outside of the cabinets for measuring cups and bowls and colanders. It looks slightly decorative but mostly utilitarian. My bedroom has hooks on the front and back of the door. For towels and whatever. I even have an eye hook placed in my back splash to hold the cutting boards in place.

This weekend we went to Ikea to scout the counter tops. There was a bin of dog butts and my kids were trying to get inside it. I knew I had a place for them. I just don't know what they hold. Mostly it just looks cleaner. Before this rack had two pegs and holes where the other four used to be.

I also had John put some hooks on this cabinet. It sits by the front door and since we don't have an entry way, this is my poor mans version. Now I can hang my purse on the hook and keep it out of the hands of the wild monkey's that live here.

 

Then, while cleaning out our bedroom "armoire," I found these shabby chic hooks. I'm sure I'll find a place for them, even if it means a coat of paint. Any ideas?

Hit 'em Up Tile

 

Someday soon I will slightly redo my kitchen. It needs a new sink and countertop and backsplash and faucet and stove. I mean, our fridge is in the hall*, but our tiled countertop is much, much worse. It just won't stay clean! I'm pretty sure I want the IKEA butcherblock countertops and just simple white tiles for the backsplash, but I also wanted to mix in something excellent.

I found these tiles at Anthropologie on sale for $2! They are actually coasters, but remove those foam squares and I get awesome decorative tiles for cheap. And I don't even have to order them and wait.

I carried the tiles around the store for awhile, I hate to just spend money with no actual project, but Deborah said, "Worst case, you just use them as coasters."

I bought eight tiles, four in each color and I kind of want to go to another store to see if they have any more.

(Amanda? Would you mind checking the Denver area stores? Thanks). 

When I was trying to photograph the tiles, the boys kept trying to touch them asking, "Mom, can I touch them." I said no.

I had no idea I had hand models in my family.


*Yes, our fridge sits in a hall utility closet. Seems when it was built, no one had refrigerators.