Easy Ikea Rast hack – Practical and inspiring

I was looking back at some of the projects I have done and noticed that I didn’t share the post on my Ikea Rast hack side table.  I think it’s because there are so many of these hacks around, I didn’t want to be redundant.  Nevertheless, I figured I’ll just put it out there to show what I did with the Rast. I am sure you have seen some inspiring ikea hack throughout the years, here’s a few more to add to the list.

I was on a mission to find a reasonable nightstand to use temporarily till I redo my bedroom. Figuring out the feel I wanted in my room was a lot more difficult than I expected. Did I want moody and dark or light and airy, glamourous, trendy, neutral, so much to figure out. Being that I love a good DIY I tried my hand at putting a spin on a simple Ikea Rast. Well, needless to say, that it’s been six years with this temporary ikea side table.

Ikea furniture is notorious for having hundreds of pieces and is time consuming to assemble.  So, I coerced my husband to put the two side tables together.  To his surprise it was pretty easy, alleluia!  I would’ve never heard the end of it if it was difficult!

Supplies needed

Ikea Rast 3 drawer chest

Hammer

Sanding block

Stain ( Color of your choice), I used Minwax Gel Stain

Sponge brush

Oil base white high gloss paint

2″ Purdy brush

Hardware

Screw driver

Process…

After assembling the Ikea Rast dressers using the directions provided, we gave it a light sand with a 220 grit sandpaper just to open up the pores to accept the stain and the paint.

Next, I stained three sides of the dresser with mini wax gel stain in an espresso color to match my other furniture in the room and let it dry.

I painted the drawer fronts with oil based white paint with  2″ Purdy paint brush. Using combination of the oil base paint and the purdy brush gave it a smooth finish without brush marks. The glossy finish has look of lacquer, which is the look I was going for.

I added brushed brass drawer pulls I had ordered from d.lawless hardware, they had really good prices and a nice selection.

Six years later, still standing, better than it ever did… This ikea rast hack was inexpensive and can be so easily turned into something fabulous.

Here’s a look at other amazing Ikea rast hacks

Inspired by beautiful caned furniture, Meg Lowery from Roost & Ramble created this gorgeous nightstand with simple texture, natural elements of cane to elevate this piece. After series of trial and error, Meg put together an easy to follow plan to make this stunning nightstand.

This DIY is a whole new look to a standard Ikea Rast dresser. At Style Squeeze blog you can see how they turned the simple Rast into a show stopping architect style chest of drawers.

Paul Tran DIY wanted to elevate the Rast drawer into something more unique and add some industrial characteristics as well. This is his version the IKEA Rast 3 drawer chest. Looks amazing!

Denise at Frazzled Joy wanted to create custom nightstands for their master bedroom at minimal cost. She did just that with this design.

This nightstand was created by Ashley from Simply Designing that looks like a beautiful piece of custom furniture. Her husband made a custom metal overlay using square and round metal trim for the face of the drawers. He cut and welded the metal pieces and attached them to the front of the drawers to create this fabulous modern industrial nightstand.

Jessica at Mad in Crafts was challenged to take a plain Jane RAST dresser and turn it into something fabulous.  She used paint and new hardware give the boring dresser a thoroughly modern makeover. She used table legs which is an inexpensive way to completely change the look of a piece.  Decorative nailhead trim around the perimeter of the dresser added a stunning finish.

These ikea rast dressers have been transformed from a bare and boring to creative and fabulous! Don’t you think?

I always love a good DIY, check out some of my other projects here and here.

Thank you for stopping by…