Our last major furniture purchase was back in our first apartment together.  We had a little 1 bedroom apartment and our bedroom had no closet.  Luckily we had 2 huge armoires that were able to hold lots of the husbands clothes and the tv, but when I moved in, the place had very little “style”.  I couldn’t handle the “dorm room” thrown together-ness and when I came in, we went to the great Ikea for solutions!

I know Ikea isn’t the most original, but it is pretty cheap and you get a lot of storage for your money in a decent style.  We went with the black-brown Malm nightstands and some dressers.  I hated those nightstands though!  They were perfect for what we needed…which is why they have been with us for the last 3 years, but I’ve been on the search for something better.

In our new bedroom there are a LOT of built-in cabinets with mirrors and a cherry wood frame in arches.  The floors are walnut colored.  The windows frames and baseboards are white.  We also have a guest room that we furnished with that old Malm stuff, so I found myself on the hunt for new nightstands again!  I couldn’t make up my mind…its a problem!  Everything I liked was VERY expensive.  Another problem!

I came across a post somewhere in blog world where someone “hacked” an ikea RAST dresser.  I thought…WHOA…I can make that work for my bedroom!!!!

Here’s where we started:

Rast undone...

Here’s where we ended up:

Rast A La LK

I stained the frame to match mostly to the built ins, and painted the drawers white to bring a more modern look to it.  Finally, I added some antique brass knobs to coordinate with the built ins without being too matchy-matchy.  Total damage to the house fund = $75 for 2 custom nightstands!  The next addition to the bedroom will be a headboard that we just purchased and hopefully I’ll find a rug I like too!

More projects to come!