You may or may not know that when I started this blog I was doing mostly DIY projects...

It wasn't until about 3 years ago that I started to focus more on my scrapbooking and memory-keeping...and that part of my life has pretty much taken over the content I post here.

Until today.

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Belwith Products (manufacturer of Hickory Hardware) to see if I wanted to take part in a multi-blogger IKEA hack. I immediately jumped at the chance...and then thought to myself..."oh man...can I still DIY???"


This was our "assignment:" Take a plain old ordinary IKEA Rast dresser and hack it.


Sounds simple enough right? Well, it was...until I started thinking about exactly how I wanted this project to turn out.

There are a ton of photos of these hacks on Pinterest...a ton. But I wasn't "feeling" any of them...so I started searching for pins of dressers and end tables and I found something I loved. I'd found my hack inspiration.

Below you will see my inspiration photo...it's of a Danish Modern end table...and I instantly fell in love with it. Which is weird, because Danish Modern looks an awful lot like American Mid-Century Modern and if you'd asked me a month ago what I thought about the Mid-Century Modern style I probably would have made a gagging/puking motion. But I gotta tell ya...I think my furniture style may be a-changing.

source

So awesome, right?

I started by assembling my dresser. IKEA is truly the master of build-it-yourself furniture and the whole process took me about 30 minutes. Now came the fun part...


My husband suggested I dye the drawers the dark color I wanted instead of painting (which would take away the look of the grain) or staining (which is more difficult and messy & has a great chance for screw- ups). I was totally on-board for the easier way.

The thing is...wood dye can be really expensive. Like $20 for 2 oz. expensive. So my husband suggested trying food coloring. Genius idea. Only after about 15 tries I still couldn't find the right mix of red, blue & yellow to give me the dark brown I wanted. Then it dawned on me. Fabric dye.

And a quick trip to Michaels later I was set...



Here's how I dyed the wood...

I filled a little bowl with some water...then I poured in some of the Rit. I grabbed a paint brush and brushed it on...I let it dry and sanded the wood (the water & dye make the wood kind of "furry"). I brushed on another coat of dye, let it dry and then did it again. 3 coats. That's it. Easiest color job ever. And with every coat of the dye the wood got darker and darker...it was awesome.

I haven't done this yet, but eventually I will need apply a few layers of shellac to my drawer faces so that the dye will stay put.

I patched the holes that were drilled for the original pulls and re-drilled holes for the new handles I chose and received from Hickory Hardware.


A few coats of white paint to the outside of the dresser and I was almost done.

I knew I wanted to add legs to the bottom...but the Rast, as it comes, has no bottom. So I measured and cut one...screwed it into place and added some legs. I dyed the wood on those, too...the same way I did the drawers.


And that's it.


I am sooooo happy with this piece. I love how it looks in my living/dining room, and now I want to re-design that entire space around it.

And I'm so grateul to Hickory Hardware for giving me this opportunity! I had a blast with it...


Wanna see the rest of the Rast hacks that were part of this project?

Wow. That was a long title.

A couple of weeks ago, I shared my "new" entryway with you...it's really amazing what a coat (or 3) of paint can do...

It went from this:





Love.

As part of that makeover I repainted our little pantry door...it used to look like this:

Sooooo much better, huh?

And it was really fairly simple to do...

First I took the door off the hinges and painted the entire thing (front and back) Duck Egg blue. I knew I wanted to add some texture to the door, but I wasn't really sure how I wanted to do it...that is until a trip to Hobby Lobby and a little thinking outside the box helped solve my problem.

As I was walking through the aisles, something near the back of the store caught my eye...in the dollhouse section...yep, the dollhouse section.

This is what I saw...


Fake "tin" roofs and dollhouse floor & door trim. I snatched up all they had (3 roofs and 4 packages of trim)...and then I headed to the wood stuff and grabbed a couple other things...(you'll see those in a minute)...

I toyed with the idea of leaving the roofs white and painting the trim white to match, but in the end I decided everything should be the same color as the door.

As soon as all the paint was dry, I eyed up the measurements (I rarely measure "for real"...it drives my husband crazy) and attached the roofs with wood glue. Then I held up the trim to the sides of each roof and just quickly marked it each piece with a pencil and "mitre'd" them with scissors. I attached the trim with glue and used painter's tape to hold the pieces in place until the glue had dried.



Then I just pushed some spackle into the places that didn't line up perfectly and painted over that with a little brush.

I knew that I wanted a little decoration at the top of the door, too...so when I was in wood department at the store I scooped up a couple of wood decorations...a medallion and some flourishes...



So, what do you think? Better, no?


Tomorrow I'll show you what I've done with the inside of the door...

Notice I didn't write, "how to paint a room"...I'm not sure if what I'm doing is technically correct, or efficient, or whatever...but it works just fine for me, so I thought I'd pass on what I've learned to you.

And, because I seem to have been doing nothing but painting for the past few weeks, I think I've worked some bugs out of my own methods, too...

OK...so first...you've decided you want to paint a room. You've chosen your color, you've gotten all of your supplies (brush, roller, paint, painter's tape, etc.). You're set to go...so you pour some paint into your tray and you paint, right? Wrong.

I've found that if I don't take the time to do some pre-paint prep work, then things just never look right.

So here's what you...oops! I mean I do...

Now, the fun part starts...

Now it's time to bring on the paint!


Now here's a little side note...I rarely prime my walls. Unless the color I want to put on the walls is drastically different from the one that's already up. I just buy paint with primer already in it and two coats of that is usually sufficient.

Woo hoo! Now just the final steps...



And finally...

So, there you have it. That's how I paint a room. This is the way that works best for me...how about you? Have any great painting pointers you'd like to share? I'd love to hear 'em!

OH! And I'll be revealing the results of all of my painting in the next few days! Yay!