DIY Cane Dresser | Ikea Hack TARVA Dresser Makeover

Hi, welcome back to my channel. My name is Megan and today's video is going to be another Ikea hack. I love these. I love finding inexpensive furniture that I can make look like more expensive furniture without having to spend the money. So that's what we're going to do today. This is the Tarva from Ikea. I have not uploaded a video in a little while. I've been really busy. We moved, we sold our house, moved into an apartment, we're renting now. I have a two-year-old whose favorite word is no, and I'm pregnant. So it's just been really kind of crazy. And our bedroom is in total disarray. If you've been following for a while, then you remember my complete closet makeover that I did also using Ikea items. And we didn't need a dresser when we had that. That closet was humongous. It had so much storage in it. It was lovely. Well, now we're in a rental, we're in an apartment and I need a dresser. And I really like nice things, but I don't have the budget for it. That's a lot of us. So I purchased the Tarva from Ikea and I'm going to make it look completely different. It is basically just a pine dresser. I've already started putting it together. So I'm not going to go through the instructions on how to compile this dresser. Everything from Ikea comes with awesome instructions. I have the instructions here. And as I was putting this dresser together, I decided I wasn't going to put the bottom on it. I'm not doing any legs because I want to put my own legs on it. I'm skipping step 12, as well as steps 17 through 23. And that includes everything that needs to go on the bottom to include the legs. And you'll see in a minute why I'm not including legs. I'm going to put some really, really pretty sort of mid-century style legs on here. I just want to mention that if you don't follow me on Instagram, please make sure you do that. Update me stories daily. I'm at Megan Bell Made and let's get started. This is the dresser completely put together. Having skipped steps 12 and 17 through 23 and upside down, you can see the holes here from where the legs should have gone. And we're going to be creating new holes for our legs. With that said, there are a lot of parts that came with this dresser that you will not be using because you're not going to add the legs like this and this and all of these. I purchased the legs and the additional hardware for the legs on Amazon. I'll have everything linked below. And I want to place this hardware an inch and a half away from each edge. So I'm going around each side and I'm measuring an inch and a half and I'm marking the five holes that are on the hardware. You always want to choose a drill bit size that's just slightly smaller than the screw that you're using. So that's what I did here. It's completely fine to drill all the way through if you do. I did it a couple times, although I tried not to. It's kind of hard on wood that's this thin. And so I'm just going around and I'm pre-drilling all of those smaller screw holes and that's just the outer four. And so I did have to change my drill bit size for that center hole because the legs have a larger thread size. Now that all my holes are pre-drilled, I can attach all of the hardware and screw the legs in. You want to make sure that you end with the legs facing outward towards the side of the dresser and that's going to give you that really pretty slanted mid-century modern look. Now it's time for paint. So I'm laying a drop cloth down so I can make sure I don't get paint everywhere. And I'm turning the dresser right side up and what I'm going to be using is this Zinsser Ben shellac based primer. This is really important to make sure that you're using the shellac based and it will help you cover up these knots. I'm just going to spray the knots on this because I'm painting it a dark color. If I were painting this dresser white or any shade that's a little bit lighter, I would make sure I painted the whole thing and I would probably use you know the can and paint it on with a roller or brush. But because I'm painting it so dark, I just want to cover the knots. I'm just going to use the spray paint version. Now I typically do not use latex paint on furniture but I have this leftover from my previous project in my master bath at my previous home and I love this color so much. I decided I was going to use this just because it is unfinished wood that I'll be painting. If this were a dresser I was like restoring or painting over a finish already, I would not be using this but it is Benjamin Moore's Vintage Vogue. It is a very very pretty dark green. I absolutely love it and I'm also going to be sealing it with some poly once I'm finished painting. Also you may notice I am brushing it on. I am comfortable brushing my paint on in most scenarios however if you're worried about brush strokes I would definitely roll your paint on with a paint roller. I prefer to brush mine most of the time but this would be a perfect project because there's not a to roll it out and would save you a lot of time as well. Here I am applying my second coat. Two coats was the perfect amount for this paint. Because this paint has a flat finish I'm going to seal it with some satin crystal clear water-based polyurethane. I have already put together all of my drawers according to the directions from Ikea and I'm going to be filling in these holes on the front that were for the knobs. I'm just going to be using some plastic wood in the color natural. I'm going to fill the little holes, sand them down after it dries and I'm going to do that to all six drawers. I'm going to be attaching some cane webbing as well as some trim to the drawer front so I'm just measuring all the way around the perimeter of the drawer front an inch and a quarter which is the width of my trim to make sure that when I lay my cane webbing that it sits underneath the trim. I have a few places I like to buy my cane webbing from that I will list below. The measurements that I came up with for my cane webbing are 27 and a half inches by seven inches. That seems to be the perfect size to fit under my trim and I'm trying to be as minimal as I can with this because I don't like to be wasteful when it comes to materials like these. What I'm doing is I'm cutting it which is a pair of scissors and I'm filling my sink with room temperature water which should not be very warm at all and I'm going to let it soak for about 20 minutes. And then I just took it out of the water shook it out a little bit to get the excess water off but I'm applying this caning while it's wet. I just need to trim off this extra edge that I forgot to trim off. You want to make sure that this is centered in the middle of the drawer and I'm just using a craft stapler. You can use a staple gun if you want. I just have a regular craft stapler that I'm using with light duty staples. It works really well for this project. I'm going to start in the center. I'm going to work my way all the way to the edges. The staples don't need to be butted up right against each other. It doesn't need to be perfect because I'm going to use wood glue to attach the trim which will also help keep the cane webbing on. The trim I'm using I purchased at Home Depot. I'll have the exact type linked below. I went ahead and I cut it all down on my miter saw making sure to miter the edges. I've got 12 pieces cut at 29 and a half inches and 12 pieces cut at eight and seven eighths of an inch. I'm applying the trim using wood glue and here in the video you're going to see I applied it to the drawer front but later on in the project I found it worked better if I actually applied the wood glue to the back of the trim so I highly suggest that. I'm going to use some clamps to hold that trim in place. I made sure it was nice and flush with the edge by the way and let it sit for 20 minutes. After 20 minutes has passed I went ahead took the clamps off and applied the other side and did the same thing. We have 20 minutes for it to dry. And because I only have two clamps I went ahead and did my outer edges with one clamp each so I was able to kind of knock those out at the same time. Now that everything is dry I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to apply some plastic wood filler into the places where the trim meets so that everything will be nice and flush and pretty when it's done. While I'm waiting for that to dry I'm going to go ahead and install my drawer pulls. I got these off Amazon. I love them. I was worried about having only one drawer pull and needing two. I'm here to tell you I've been using the drawer now that I'm editing this for about a week now and you don't need two. One is perfect. Measuring from one side over 14 and three quarters of an inch is exactly center for that knob so I'm going to drill it right through that trim piece because I want it to my knob to be at the top of the drawer. My wood filler has been drying for about 30 minutes now so I'm going to go through and I'm going to sand down all of my edges with some extra fine sandpaper and just get it nice and smooth. You're going to repeat this on each drawer until you have completed all of them. Thank you so much for watching. Please make sure you're subscribed to my channel and I'll see you next time.