I knew when we started designing our bedroom that I didn’t want any matching furniture. I wanted a contemporary look with personal touches even if that meant we’d have to do some work ourselves. After combing through my fave app Houzz I saw a nightstand that I loved. A few days later on Pinterest I discovered the world of ‘Rast hacks’ (Google it!) and here we are. Check out our journey in making unfinished furniture into something really special and cool for our bedroom.
This was my inspiration, an overpriced nightstand I saw on Houzz.
And here’s the $35 Rast dresser (I don’t know why they call it that, it’s barely large enough to be called a nightstand) from IKEA.
What we used. I read that BIN was the best primer for the job so it’s what I got. The middle can is a white Benjamin Moore Paint, and Danish Oil stain. The small can on top is the polyurethane that you use over the stain to seal it- not a step you want to skip.
Mike put it all together before first which you don’t have to do but we didn’t want to knick anything up after working so hard on it.
Take the drawers out and face the fronts up so you can easily paint them.
I used tape so I wouldn’t get primer and paint all over the inside. Don’t worry about painting in there, you’ll never notice it’s unfinished.
All primed! The drawer fronts were the easy part, just one coat of primer and 2 of the white paint. I used a roller instead of a brush so I wouldn’t get brush streaks, but I ended up with small bubbles that made the surface look textured so I used a light grit sandpaper to smooth it out before the second coat and then I rolled slowly. Ask someone when you buy the paint what brush or roller would work best so you don’t get streaks or bubbles.
Here’s Mike applying the first coat of the Danish Oil. He ended up using several more coats and then a different stain in a process that ended up taking a few weeks because we couldn’t get them as dark as we wanted.
After a little Googling and a lot of help from the paint department at Home Depot, Mike bought a third stain. We ran the risk of the stain not penetrating because of over saturating so he sanded them down first before adding a Minwax stain that would end up being just perfect. We were thankful it worked and they dried in just a few days. The nightstand on the left is what we had after trying the two stains and on the right is the final color. It looks black but it’s not, it’s a rich chestnut that matches our dresser perfectly.
Here it is! I haven’t finished accessorizing them yet (I’m focusing on the nursery.)
The ring pulls were from Horton Brasses, they’re the 1 7/8 size with a satin nickel finish. Yes, pricey but you won’t find something that looks this nice at Lowe’s or Home Depot (believe me I tried!)
Another look In our room.
A few takeaways:
These Rast nightstands are much shorter and more narrow than what we’ve had in the past. Measure what you already have in your room, then measure these to see how they size up. I didn’t mind the smaller size because they force me to de-clutter.
Because they’re so small, they aren’t terribly sturdy. Consider what you’ll be putting in them and if you have small children who climb all over things. Again, we haven’t had any problems but it’s something to think about.
If you aren’t getting the right color right away, go buy another stain because layering doesn’t increase the richness of the color by much.
Try the stain on just a small area instead of the whole thing. Doing that would’ve saved us a lot of time.
I’m so glad we took a chance with this project since we aren’t DIY people. They turned out perfect and gave us the confidence to do another project for the nursery that I’m so excited to share with you soon.
This is awesome! Most people don’t realize that they can do this sort of thing themselves. It saves you so much money. Thanks for sharing!