IKEA NORNAS Sideboard Makeover

I took my plain old IKEA NORNAS sideboard and hacked it to give it a rustic, farmhouse feel.
Here’s a look at the makeover, along with some tips on how I got it done!

Alternately titled: How to make decisions about a room when you have no idea what you’re doing in said room.

It seems that this is my specialty lately.

We’ve had this sideboard sitting in our living room for a little over a year now. And, for a little over a year I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with it.

Sometimes I take a long time to make decisions. Apparently.

I really love the lines of this piece and how incredibly functional it is. I also love that it’s the perfect size for our slightly-awkwardly-sized entryway area. It’s not too deep (common problem with pieces we found), too short, or too tall. Basically, it’s the perfect piece.

DIY IKEA NORNAS Sideboard Hack

I really didn’t want to paint the whole thing. We already have one big painted piece in this room that is probably staying. But, I also felt like if I just stained it all it would end up feeling really heavy.

So, where did I land? I decided to stain the outside of the piece, and paint the interior pieces white. The legs, back, and X-shelves are already gray, and I left them like that. This was the best of both worlds for me! It’s still bright and doesn’t feel like a giant block of wood, but it also has a little more character than it would if I had just painted the whole thing. Bonus – the stained top is a little more durable than a painted one.

Oh, and it looks pretty dang amazing, too.

I definitely recommend painting something like this before putting it together. But, it’s not too hard to do afterward, either. I just stained the outside pieces (using this color, which is a new favorite!). Then, I taped off all of the edges where the middle and the edges meet and painted the middle shelves white.

My biggest tip when you’re painting a piece of furniture is to remember to lightly sand in-between each coat. It’s vital for a smooth finish! Also, use a paint sprayer anytime you can for a more factory-like finish. I obviously couldn’t spray the shelves white, but I did use my sprayer for the polycrylic to seal the whole thing.

Let it all dry and then…done!

Styling the IKEA NORNAS Sideboard

Obviously, we ended up replacing the baskets in our IKEA NORNAS as well. The oritinal ones had a very modern feel to them. While we loved them, they didn’t really flow with the direction we wanted to go with this piece. We’ve moved the old ones to the garage for now, and I’m thinking we’ll probably try to incorporate them in that room as part of the storage.

Once I had it all painted and back in place, the next issue I had to deal with was what in the world to do with those X-shaped wine racks. I love them in the piece and they look so pretty, but I had a hard time deciding what I could put in them other than wine.

I started with our photo books! There are a ton of them, so I always have a hard time figuring out where to put them. Then I grabbed some blankets, rolled them up, and added them to the mix. Then? I stared at the stupid thing for about half an hour trying to come up with what else I could put on the shelves.

After thinkin a while, I headed to the store to pick up some little round vase fillers and a big bunch of faux bamboo. I love how it turned out, and it makes me wish I would have bought more bamboo so I could have done it to a few shelves!

With this piece, I finally feel like I’m getting a little bit of an idea of the direction I want to take this room. It’s a little farmhouse, a little modern, and a lot of texture. This makes me really excited to make some other changes and see it all start to come together.

I’d love your input for where to go with this room next. What should we do with the stencil wall? Leave it? Shiplap? Wood feature wall? Help!