Ikea Nightstand Hack

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I know people have probably been hacking Ikea goods for as long as the place has been churning out affordable furniture. I also know Im totally late to the hacking party! While I’ve bought plenty of Ikea furniture over the years its never been with the intention to hack from the get go. That is, until this move. Until this Ikea ‘As-Is’ section. Until this Ikea nightstand hack.

The Raw Goods

If you’ve been reading my posts for a while you will remember our latest Ikea haul that maxed out our Prius’ packing capabilities(above). Hidden in that pile of discounted goods were two beat up MALM nightstands priced at a whopping $27. We may have knack for finding crazy as-is deals(what can I say?!). These guys are still reasonably priced new but seeing the pair marked down so much with what I considered strictly cosmetic issues I threw them on our cart as quickly as possible.

The Paint

After rolling around a few color schemes for our new bedroom space I decided on a Navy, Rosegold, Beachwood combo. With that in mind I skimmed the chalk paint color selection and grabbed a jar in the color Nautical. Theinitially looked pretty close to the shade I was going. Unfortunately, after I swatched it I realized it was way too light. Straight out of the jar this is closer to a royal blue. So I grabbed a container of Rich black and started mixing. After 2 coats of paint, 1 coat of Wax, and 20 minutes of elbow grease buffing these looked good as better than new!

DIY note: if you’re mixing a custom color its really helpful to weigh as you go. I use our digital kitchen scale and and write down the “recipe” as I mix. This way I can create multiple batches while covering larger areas and duplicate the shade exactly as needed. The final color came out to about 3 parts blue and 1 part black.

The Hardware

I’ve used these simple pulls for other projects in the past and loved them. I knew I wanted to use them again to keep the look pretty clean and modern. Plus, you can grab the multi pack of 10 which is great because I have plans for the other 6 handles (more on that later). I’d been lusting after all the gorgeous rose gold hardware floating around Pinterest for some time but after seeing a couple price tags(who pays this much for handles??) decided I could get the same look with some good ol’ spray paint.

*Update: Amazon has now started making their own version of these pulls for a fraction of the price! I’ve used both and they’re equally well made and versatile for DIY projects.

I started off with the Valspar Rose Gold since it was so highly recommended online. This was great on coverage and it did have a rose-y hue but I like my Rose Gold pushing the line on Copper so I went in search of something else. Now, looking at the Dusty Pink by Krylon you would think this is going to come out straight Pink sans any Gold but NOPE! It came out my dream color mashup of Copper and Rose Gold(que the spray paint angels singing! Ahhhhh!). You can see the difference pretty well below. The right has just one coat of the Valspar and the Left has the additional coat of Krylon:

The Final Hack

I know I’ve been blowing up my social media with a lot of #chalkpaint but I’m still totally in love. Get used to it peeps! Any product that has this kind of coverage and staying power without me having to sand a single square inch is here to STAY! This covered all the scrapes and scratches these floor models had and made it look like part of the wood grain. And again: NO SANDING!

We talked about adding feet/legs(and we may still) but for now we are loving these new-to-us nightstands! So have you intentionally hacked any Ikea goods? Done a nightstand makeover? You know I’d love to hear all about it in the comments!