Back when we bought furniture for the babies’ nursery, I fell in love with the idea of making the dresser something that would be unique.

In the midst of our very Ikea-esque room, it would be the one thing that no other babies would have.  We bought an unfinished oak dresser from Ikea with plans to paint it and incorporate the fabric I would use to make the babies’ crib bedding.

Ikea Dresser – $149

Mr. Blue took on the daddy project of assembling the dresser.  Then while he was out of town, I took a piece of the other nursery furniture to Lowes, where they were happy to match the color for me.  I bought Olympic zero-VOC paint to minimize any exposure to things I didn’t want to breathe while pregnant.  I only painted the main part of the dresser and left all the drawers plain since I had another plan for them.

We had purchased four different fabrics to use in making our crib bedding, and I bought extra yards of the striped material to cover the drawers of the dresser.  I laid the dresser drawer down on the material and cut about an inch to an inch and a half all the way around the face of the drawer.  Then, I used one of my very favorite tools, a staple gun, with 1/4 inch staples to attach the fabric all the way around the inside of the drawer’s face. Seriously, staple guns are so fun.  I feel so tough when I use one, but it’s so very simple truly anyone can do it.

The only tricky part of the whole process was making sure the stripes lined up from one drawer to the next.  After finishing up the drawers, I added white drawer knobs from Hobby Lobby.


I love, love, love how it turned out and how easily it came together.  Another awesome thing is that when the boys get older and we change up their room, I can just recover the drawers or paint them.  For nursery purposes, the dresser will double as our changing station, though I’m not finished setting it up yet.

This was a really fun way to personalize the nursery furniture, without spending tons of time, money, or effort.  It’s also far easier than a true Ikea hack because the dresser was just unfinished wood.  Most of the Ikea furniture would require a lot more effort and luck to truly make-over.


Did you refurbish any furniture for your nursery?