ALTERED IKEA FURNITURE

Everyone has a love/hate relationship with Ikea: love it, because it's inexpensive, well made, solid, lasts for ages... and hate it, because you see it everywhere (the number of makeover/housing developer programmes I've seen it on...)

Well, due to being fairly permanently impoverished, we bought Ikea bedside tables and a wardrobe around 3 years ago, which I was pretty tired of. I decorated the bedroom last month, and we couldn't afford to replace them, so I thought What the hell, and went ahead and transformed them into objects of love and desire with paint.

The wardrobe has had 1 coat of paint - and I had just started to paint the plastic panels - which is why they now look chic and totally UNLIKE Ikea! (They are now doing the wardrobe in Beech & White finishes - their white looks really cheap and nasty).

First the prep: minimal - a quick going-over with fine sandpaper to give it a tooth, after which I applied two coats of self-undercoating eggshell paint (Simple White by Crown) applied with a small varnish roller.

The left-hand drawers are the original beech finish. On the right is the painted finish (again, just one coat so far).

The trick in painting furniture successfully is to use an eggshell finish rather than gloss, sand first, and apply with a gloss roller or varnish roller if at all possible.

I mixed the whites in my bedroom by using different shades of off white, which all meld beautifully. The room is miniscule, so I had to keep to light colours (and just one feature wall with a metallic-finish wallpaper) and the effect is light but WARM. Don't use brilliant white, it's got a blue undertone and looks brash and very cold.

The finishing touch - as you can see here - which I am convinced made the difference - was to change the handles.

These were from B&Q, the DIY store, and are antiqued brass with white china (and cost as much as the wardrobe itself!)




I added a couple of tassels on the wardrobe, being as they were on sale and an offer I couldn't refuse - and I think they do add a little Je ne sais quoi, and also break up the expanse of white.

On the practical side, I added clear heavy glass (6mm thick, cut to size) for the table tops,which just sits on little silicone tabs - no other fixings needed.

Hope this gives a little inspiration!