Ikea Tarva Hack

Waaay back in April, my BFF's and I journeyed to Ohio on an IKEA pilgrimage and I had been planning a little "Ikea hack" ever since.

I bought an Ikea Tarva dresser with the intention of turning it into a grand hutch for our kitchen... but of course the practicality of hacking a giant hutch with no construction experience..... yeah, no.

After I stared at the boxes for a solid month... my dad and I put it together with a minimum of swearing.

The first thing we noticed, which you can see in the picture below, is that the drawers are ever-so-slightly wonky.  Like... the gap in the middle of the 2 sets of drawers are just off.



My dad, handyman extraordinaire, determines that this will ruin my whole project.  I am not deterred.

So we get to cutting out some trim to snazz the Tarva up.

Many hours later (like 3), things are looking good.  

 

We get the whole piece trimmed out, including the sides.  And miraculously, the trim seems to have magically evened everything out.  No weird gaps, it looks pretty perfect.

Miracles do happen!  Even IKEA miracles.

Four layers of stain, 3 layers of paint, and approximately 8 layers of polyurethane later... things were starting to get real.

Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!!  The only thing better than dreaming up an Ikea project is FINISHING it. 

It's not so much a "kitchen hutch" as I had planned... but it's actually holding overflow baking supplies, and I just loooove to kick my shoes off underneath it after a long day.  Which is really classy and totally Pinterest-worthy. 

Bam.  Nothing like a good transformation to make me want to do it all again!

Now... I can't understand why my husband doesn't want to make an Ikea trip and start on another project together.

I mean.... it looks pretty amazing, right?  We won't go into some of the "little tweaks" I want to make to it. 

Ikea or Bust.

It's not like I've got a backlog of posts or anything, but back in APRIL, my three BFF's and I packed up #BFFbaby and headed to Ohio on an IKEA pilgrimage.

We had a long list of items for family and friends... and in the end we probably should have rented a giant RV... but we made it work in a big big pickup truck.

But first... we made a pit stop in Jeffersonville, OH at a giant outlet mall.  We didn't arrive till late afternoon on a Sunday, so we had to supermarket-sweep through all our choice stores. 

And then our littlest shopper pooped out, so I was basically in heaven with a heavy baby in my arms.  WEEP.  She's so much bigger than this now!

We spent the night near IKEA, and packed up our truck in an absolute DOWNPOUR.  There were some construction folks at the hotel who were QUITE concerned that four girls in dresses (and a baby) were strapping a tarp to the back of a truck in the pouring rain.  Hot mess!

Luckily, the rain stopped right as we pulled in, and we were off to the races.  

We snapped a quick group photo - and yes, we're all a little rain-rough.. and it was off to the show room!

We let the little monkey sample the goods... she liked it.

I think the pic below might be one of my favorites of #BFFbaby.  I love how she's lounging! 

I found some really essential items that I wasn't really sure why they were selling...

And we created a cocoon in a cart when our littlest shopper pooped out... she napped in there for a couple hours.  I won't even tell you how many times we walked around an aisle and said, "wait, where's the cart?!?"  You know, the important one carrying a tiny human.

After approximately 6 hours of shopping till we drop - it was time for the ultimate task of loading up the car.  

Everybody thought we were nuts, but we managed to load up our ride and then cover it with a tarp because there were strong storms forecasted our entire drive home.  LUCKILY, we didn't get a drop of rain and made it home in one piece. 

And then it took me over a month to put all the IKEA stuff away and together.  Which, according to my husband is FOREVER ... I bet there are plenty of IKEA boxes in garages all over the country - un-assembled.

IKEA is always such a fun trip when I bring my BFFs... I'm trying to convince my husband to make a pilgrimage with me in July.... bad idea?

Happy Monday!

Nightstand Redo (an IKEA Rast Hack)

A couple of months ago, I became enraged that Mr. RH didn't have a nightstand next to his bed.  Not even a table or anything.

Myself, I can't live without a nice table next to my bed with at least 2 drawers in it.  Plenty of room for all of my nighttime essentials.  Ibuprofen and allergy meds and chapstick and at least 6 different types of lotions. 

So, I found myself seeking out nightstands anywhere I went.  Target, TJ Maxx, random other places.... no dice.

But then there was the trip to IKEA.  Three months ago, no big deal.

And then an amazing Rast Hack tutorial from A Charming Nest. 

And then, of course, I convinced my dad to help.

First I put the IKEA pieces together.  Boring but necessary.  Letting them sit in the garage for a week or two is optional.

Next up, deciding what size of trim the piece should have.  Who knew 1/4 of an inch would make SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE?!  Difference?  Negligible, in the end.

Then there was the testing of stains.  How in the heck are you supposed to know what stain is going to look like?!  Also, stain is scary and dangerous.  

My dad borrowed a fancy saw from a friend... and we then spent an entire morning sawing.  I sawed at least 5 pieces. 

The hardest part of cutting all the trim was making sure I didn't accidentally cut a long piece into a short one thinking it was scrap.  There was a lot of stacking and counting and re-stacking of trim pieces.

Then there was the varnishing of the top piece.... let's just say I'm not so familiar with varnish.

The hardest part for me was putting on the drawer pulls straight.. and if you can spot it, I may have messed up once... fortunately, my dad fixed this a couple of days later.

So, if you're thinking that you can't do a major IKEA overhaul on your own... you may be correct.  It actually ended up costing me quite a pretty penny to complete the project.

$40 each for the night stands.
$21 for paint, stain, and varnish.
$22 for the wood piece we used on the top.
$15 for drawer pulls.
$10 for disposable gloves used for staining.
$10 for moulding for the base of the piece.

And of course I'm missing the receipt for the trim which was probably the most expensive thing... bringing us to at least $80 per night stand.

 

Can't say I'm sad with the finished project though.  Now if only Mr. RH didn't view them as a major imposition on his daily life.  Apparently they're blocking his zen or something.  

Men.

Feel free to tell me how impressive the transformation is.  My favorite thing to do as of late is to go visit them at Mr. RH's apartment when he's not home.  They miss me, I can tell.

I IKEA'd and Lived to Tell About It

Last Sunday, I left the house at 7 am to head to church with Mr. RH.  From there, we returned to his apartment (across town) for breakfast and then I ran off to work.

I put in my 8 hours to The Man and then proceeded to jump directly in a car to Indianapolis.  From there, we went directly to a yummy dinner at Mesh... and then directly home to the BFF's Indy apartment to bed. 

And by "bed" I mean a few hours of light facebook stalking and gossiping about people from high school.  Cause obviously WE have been such raging successes since 2005 that we need to talk about others to make ourselves cool.

Exactly.

At approximately 3 am, I popped up out of bed - and stayed that way.  It was extremely depressing.

At 8 am, however, we put our game faces on (mine with extra concealer) and set ourselves toward West Chester, Ohio - home of IKEA.

Now, I've never been to an IKEA before.  I'd seen and heard of the goodness, but I'd just never experienced it myself.

We pulled up and I saw what I was expecting.  In my estimation, I'd say an IKEA is about 2-3 Wal-Mart Supercenters wide and 2 high.  For comparison's sake.  Although really, there's no true comparison that I can think of.

Basically, IKEA is huge.

I asked the BFF's to take my picture in front of the yellow and blue goddess... but alas, my eyes are closed in both pictures.  So they are about to get blog famous.

We arrived just as the doors opened and were off to the races.

I wasn't exactly in NEED of anything specific - except for a kitchen table for Mr. RH's apartment - but alas it wasn't exactly on my shopping list.

So, we did a loop of the whole place before my blood sugar tanked and we had to refuel with meatballs.

 

Many thanks to @emshrock for her superb meatball shot. 

And then, we had to quick chill and recharge in the first display. 

Many thanks to bad angles and my long arm for this shot.

After that quick recharge, we had a second lap and really hit our stride.  I injured my pinkie toe twice (not really sure how, but hot damn it STILL hurts) and really had to throw out my elbows on the showroom floor cause some little kids were getting a wee bit feisty for my taste.

We had a fairly excellent experience - minus maybe one thing.  The overall staffing level at Ikea West Chester on a Monday morning was pretty dismal.  A couple of items were AWOL and we just wanted to find them.... but locating help was almost more difficult.

It wasn't too bad and fortunately we weren't really EXTREME shopping.  More like a light Monday trip with not enough money. 

We got to the checkout and there were a grand total of MAYBE eight lanes open.  It seemed like it was going to be a forever wait - but it really wasn't SO bad. 

My only tip for IKEA-ing is to bring as many reusable bags as you can find (especially if you find yourself shopping with two girls with much less self control than you have).  I grabbed my entire collection and we filled up every single bag.

We got to the car and loaded it up.... none to shabby, if I do say so myself.  There was room for another $200 merchandise and the back seat wasn't even full!

So, what did I buy?  Honestly, not SO much.  At this point in my daily life, I don't particularly need anything and anything Mr. RH wants is not likely to be found at Ikea.  

That being said, my entire haul is at his apartment, so you're going to have to settle for my verbal description of my purchases.

• Set of 2 small dressers/night stands that are unfinished and will go by Mr. RH's bed
• 2 sets of silverware
• 4 gray curtain panels to be used in the future (fell in love with the color, and they were cheap)
• couple of kitchen gadgets
• set of cheap wine glasses so I can get my drink on

I bought the least of the 3 of us but I'm already regretting it... I'm convincing Mr. RH to take me to Ikea when we go to Chicago in a week.  Wouldn't that be FUN?!

First, though, I need to stock up on sleep.  I'm worn out just remembering all that walking.  :)

Happy Wednesday!!