By Melissa Moyles
A few weeks backed I shared with you the girls new homework loft. They have been loving it for coloring, and Lego building, and of course homework.
But I knew I wanted to add something special to my ikea project. An Alex Drawer Glow Up! I hunted Pinterest and fell in love with this version from the Hardins but decided to add a few of my own twists.
Here’s what I did.
First I had to remove the drawer fronts. I’m hindsight, I could have waited to build the drawers.
Next, I added 1/8 inch hardboard to front with wood glue. I got a huge sheet at Home Depot for $20 and had them rip it down to the correct height. For length, I used my miter saw at home.
Then came the showstopper – Cane! I bought a 4ft roll of cane from Amazon. But I made 4 units so you can expect a foot per Alex unit. I soaked the cane for an hour in the bathtub and then let it dry thoroughly. I don’t know why this is important but apparently it is! I used a basic staple gun to attach it to the fronts; Pulling tight and making sure it’s straight. I then used a kitchen scissor to trim a 1 inch border the whole way around.
Next I used that same 1/8 inch hardboard to add a 3/4 inch trim around the edges. The large cutter at Home Depot couldn’t cut that thin so I was lucky to have awesome neighbors to help me with their table saw. I used my miter saw again to cut to length with 45 degree angled corners before flying and Brad nailing to the fronts.
Probably the most important step came next: Caulking the edges and sanding. It’s messy and time consuming but it makes your project go from looking DIY to custom!
Finally was time to paint. I hunted Pinterest for an ikea white paint match and came across this. I took it to Richard’s Paint and had them color match. It worked great!
Finally the last step: hardware. The Hardins used gold edge pulls but with so much black hardware in my loft it made more sense to continue with black knobs. I found these at Home Depot.
And that is it! I allotted a full day for each unit in between client calls and mom duty. If you were focused, you could probably do the whole thing in 4 hours.
Let me know what you think in the comments and please tag @3daughtersdiy on instagram if you try this ikea hack!
Best, Melissa and Girls
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