DIY Break: Ikea Rast Hack

Recounting our road trip and first few days in Ellsworth has left me needing a little break, and I’m sure you are tired of reading 🙂 So I thought I would entertain you with a little Ikea Rast hack I did to create the nightstands for our master bedroom.

Ikea Rast Chest of Drawers

I stained them with Rustoleum Dark Walnut stain hoping for a dark finish that I would later expose with sanding for a distressed look. However, for a reason that I can only assume is cheap wood, the stain didn’t absorb as I had hoped. And quite honestly I didn’t have the patience to apply the two, three, or four additional coats of stain it might have required.

Once again I was inspired by Pinterest and went with a gray/blue color to accent our reclaimed wood bed, and to add a little color to our otherwise beige and white room.

Iron Cuff

I had intended to find specialty knobs with owls on them, or at least some kind of hand painted look detail, but since we have owl lamps and agreed that might be owl overload, I went with these ivory and bronze knobs from Lowes…that ended up costing about the same as the two nightstands combined much to Husband’s displeasure :-/

And the finished product!

I still distressed the edges a little. Since our room does have a lot of beige and white I decided the lighter stain color was ok. I did try to apply more stain after I sanded hoping to achieve a darker look, but I think I may have only gotten it a half shade or so.

The lighting in our room is pretty terrible for photos, but hopefully you can get the picture.

When we first assembled these we were a little concerned at how small they seemed. After loading my delicates into them I was pleasantly surprised at how much they held, as well as how smooth the drawers slide in and out in spite of the cheap plastic glides. All in all I say they are totally worth the $35 each price tag.