Ikea Expedit Hack

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 Wow. Who knew? We have had this old, beat up Expedit thing forever. Actually, we have had a few. I think we gave our other one to our babysitter a few years ago. Even though we are moving in a few months, I haven't stopped refurbishing,decorating,etc. I mean, it's less I have to do when we move right??

 For the past few weeks I have been redoing the "playroom". I say "playroom" because it is really just an oddly shaped room off of our living room that is supposed to be a dining area…because we have outgrown this house, there is no dining in that room! It is just over packed with toys. So here I am trying to make the best of a small, oddly shaped house with too much stuff! Anyway, the Expedit was about to go OUT THE DOOR but I was like, hmm…let's paint it. And we did. And it's AWESOME. I really wish I would have taken a photo of the before! It was so so so sad. It had smashed shelves, falling off shelves, scuffs, it was a hottt mess. We started out by fixing the shelves and then went from there.

You need:

An expedit shelf
Primer
Paint (I recommend satin. I used eggshell, and I have to put a top coat on because it's too flat)
Small legs (wood section of hardware store)
Straight top plate (to connect the legs)
Plywood
Drill

-If it is the dark/brown ikea color you have, you need to prime it and prime it WELL. I would recommend three coats of primer. I did two (because I'm lazy) and I ended up having to use three coats of actual paint on some spots. Which is obviously way more expensive than just sucking it up and doing a third coat of primer.

-While you have your primer out, you might as well prime the legs if you are adding them. And prime the plywood.
-Once your primer is dry, apply paint of you choice. I used Olympic Polka Pink. It's a BEAUTIFUL pink and I am in love with it. As I recommended earlier, I would go with a satin finish.
-At this point I then spray painted the primed legs and plywood gold. Metallic spray paint is hands down my favorite spray paint to use. It dries fast and looks amazing.
-Once everything is dry, turn the shelf upside down and add the legs. You simply drill the plates onto the corners, then add the legs to the plates. (I'm not gonna lie, Patrick helped me with this,ha! So if you aren't handy with a drill, or just aren't comfortable because you are scared of messing up…which you very well could at this step, get a girlfriend,boyfriend,dad,mom…basically anyone besides you that is confident with a drill)

-Next the plywood was mounted to the back of the shelf drilling at each corner and in the middle.

-If you have this exact size shelf you can go to Lowes or Home Depot and have them cut a piece of plywood. I had them cut it 30x58 and it's perfect ;)

-All of that and you have yourself a new, fancy piece of furniture.

If you have an questions, feel free to ask! I try and make my posts as understandable as possible, but I also kind of write them the exact way I speak…so I am not sure how clear that is for ya'll!
I am also going to blog the wood grain wall very soon and next week blog the girls rooms for nursery/little girl room ideas ;)