DIY Bedside Table

I completed another project just in time to move into a new (smaller) apartment.  More on the new apartment to come later.  Until then, here's the step-by-step DIY process for transforming a plain IKEA chest of drawers into an interesting and cute bedside table.  In full disclosure, I borrowed this idea from my friend Erin's blog and she, in turn, borrowed it from Lindsay's blog.

You start with the Rast bedside table from IKEA:

Then you assemble the pieces. Here is the assembly line in my former kitchen:

I painted the drawers with semi-gloss white paint.  My mom was in town for this step of the process.  She recommended using a foam roller (and actually did most of the painting).  A foam roller is definitely the way to go.  It is much faster and has a better/smoother finish than using a traditional paint brush.

After a disastrous attempt to stain the outside of the chests a light gray color, I decided to paint them gray instead.

Here is one of the chests before I added the finishing touches:

Last step is to add the knobs, which were ordered from the store Lindsay used in her blog:

Viola!  New (custom) bedside tables for less than $50 each.