Almost two years ago, I decided I needed a dresser. I was storing half my clothes in fabric bins which I found out Marie Kondo frowns upon so I bit the bullet and bought one. I wasn’t interested in spending a fortune so like many others searching for inexpensive furniture solutions, I headed to IKEA. I ended up buying a Songesand dresser, spent an afternoon deciphering pictograms in order to get it together, and my clothes had a new home! I wasn’t a fan of the hardware, so I switched out the pulls and that was that.
A couple months ago I realized since I was out of house projects, it might be time to tackle a little smaller project and make something out of this dresser.
The first step to making any IKEA piece look like a cuter, more expensive furniture piece? Add some feet! I headed to Lowes, found myself some tapered bun feet and secured them to the bottom of my dresser using a combination of screws and wood glue. I did three bun feet across the front and then did 2 x 2 poplar supports across the back where you can’t see.
Second step was filling the holes from the existing drawer pulls. They definitely need to be relocated. I also filled in the little gaps where the rails and stiles meet because I didn’t like them.
I’ve seen fluted trim all over the place lately and really wanted to put some in my house so I thought this would be the perfect place! I bought this trim from Lowe’s and cut it down into a million tiny pieces to glue in the drawer face inset. I ended up needing 10 – 8 ft. sections for all the drawers.
Once the drawers were all good and trimmed out, the only thing left to do was paint!
I went with Sherwin Williams Modern Gray for the color and added in some BB Frosch to help the paint it adhere to the super smooth factory finish. I also sanded the whole thing down with some 180 grit before painting to help the paint stick as well.
I ended up brushing on two coats of paint. The combination of urethane paint and the paint additive helped the paint to self level and hide most of the brush strokes. Last step was adding new hardware. I bought these vintage looking inexpensive teardrop pulls from Amazon to add to each drawer.
I love how it turned out SO much! What do you think? Would you ever guess this is an IKEA dresser?
Thanks for reading,
Do you have anymore details about how you attached the legs to the dresser? I am trying to update my Songesand dresser right now too, and want to add legs.
Love it! I just cut little square pieces of poplar around 2″ x 2″ and used pocket screws and L brackets to secure them to the inside of the corners. Then drilled a screw straight down through that piece and into the leg to secure it adding some wood glue for good measure. 🙂 Good luck!
Hi there! Just wondering how you used the L brackets for the feet?!
Hi! I put one part of the “L” on the square block that I cut and the other part on the side piece of the dresser itself and then screwed it in to secure. Hope that helps!
Thanks!
Love this! I am thinking of getting this dresser but I really don’t like the handles it comes with. What length handles were the gold ones you had? Thanks!
Thanks so much! The gold ones were 5″ between hole centers. 🙂
Would you be able to send a link to the exact gold handles you had on the drawer originally? love them!
Sure thing! 🙂
https://amzn.to/3q6qyl5
Where is that mirror from? Is beautiful!
Thank you! It was a hand me down from my mom who got it from a friend years ago.
Love your work! What measurements did you have to cut the fluted trim down to for it to fit on the drawers ? I am planning on doing this project this weekend.
Hi! Thank you! I’m not sure what the exact measurement was. I just measured the inset space inside the drawer fronts. Good luck on your project!
Also what did you use to cut down the fluted trim ?
I used my miter saw. I set up a fence at my cut distance so I didn’t have to measure each individual piece. Tedious, but it worked. 🙂
Hi 👋 how did you attach those poplar supports in the back? Thanks
Hi! I used wood glue and a couple screws through the supports directly into the side panels of the dresser. Hope that helps! ☺️