Mid-Century Modern Dresser | A West Elm Inspired IKEA Hack

Mid-Century Modern Dresser | A West Elm Inspired IKEA Hack

We bought our first home over a year ago when I was 5 months pregnant. I was so excited to finally start furnishing our home exactly how I wanted. I knew I wanted to DIY a ton of things in the home and one of the first projects I tackled was this dresser and nightstand set for our master bedroom. I did a ton of research on bedroom furniture because I wanted everything to be perfect in our first home. I wanted a sophisticated look for our bedroom but didn’t want to break the budget. This IKEA ‘Tarva’ hack is inspired by a dresser from West Elm but instead of splurging on it I decided to make my own dresser and nightstand combination. I linked the exact products I used in this DIY for your convenience.

Let’s get straight into it!

The inspiration:

You will need:

I started with 2 IKEA ‘Tarva’ dressers and 2 ‘Tarva’ nightstands. These are both unfinished wood meant for you to stain or paint them which is so great if you want to design it yourself. First, I built the dressers and nightstands as instructed and left the knobs out. Then, I brushed on the Minwax Pre Stain wood conditioner on both dressers and nightstands to bring out the grain and allow the stain to apply better. I let it dry for about 20-30 minutes. I used a stain brush that I picked up at Home Depot in the wood stain aisle to apply the wood conditioner.

 

Next, using another stain brush, I applied the Varathane Dark Walnut stain to the top of the dresser, the sides and its legs. For the nightstands, I did the exact opposite. I stained only the drawers of the nightstands. I used only 1 coat of the stain because I did not want it too be too dark. I allowed the stain to sit for half the day to dry completely before I applied the Minwax Polyurethane wood finish. Using a foam sponge brush, I applied 2 coats of the polyurethane finish.

 

After the staining was complete. I used Behr wall paint in ‘Silver Bullet,‘ which is a great slate color to paint the drawers of the dressers, and the top, sides and legs of the nightstands. I applied 2 coats of the paint using a foam roller brush.

 

For the knobs, I knew I wanted something simple and gold colored. I found the perfect set from Anthropologie. They actually have really cute home décor pieces. I bought 12 knobs for the dressers and 2 for the nightstands.

 

Now that I built, stained and painted the dressers, I added an IKEA ‘Malm’ vanity in between the 2 dressers since I had a huge wall I could fill up. I added a nice gold accented mirror above the vanity from Hobby Lobby to tie in the gold accents on the knobs. I also found these perfect lamps from Hobby Lobby that matched the frame on the mirror to go on top of the dressers.

 

This was one of the simplest and easiest DIY I’ve done. Let me know what you guys thought of my IKEA hack!

To see how I organize my vanity, check out my post HERE

 

XOXO