Big Girl Furniture: Ikea Rast Hack

Furnishing an apartment is expensive and I want to start decorating my place with more "grown-up" pieces, which is hard to do on a limited budget. Pinterest and blogs have been a huge source of inspiration, especially when I found this Ikea hack on jaxdoesdesign.blogspot.com. Kelly, the blogger for Jax Does Design, used a $35 Ikea dresser and turned it into this beautiful, modern, yet classic sidetable that looks much more expensive than it is. 

So off I went to Ikea, where I picked up two Rast dressers for about $35 each. They're smaller than the average dresser, so their height made them perfect for side tables next to my bed. 

I also bought two Pippa Rast Kits from myoverlays.com and six Lattice and Bead handles from Lee Valley. After all the parts arrived, I was ready to assemble and paint! The hardest part was drilling the new holes for the handles. It involved a lot of measuring and a few mishaps and unintended holes that I needed to fill with wood glue. All the trouble was totally worth it because the dressers came out better than I ever thought they would.

Here's a picture of what the dresser looked like before I put the handles on.

And here's what it looks like after everything's finished! The bottom drawer could use another thin coat of faux zinc, but I can't tell in real life that it looks darker than the rest of the drawers, so I'll leave it as is for now. 

I also have two books, random perfume samples (held in a votive), and Voluspa's Panjoree Lychee candle. Burning candles have become one of my favorite night time rituals. 

Please let me know what you think of my new dressers!