Misc |

DIY: Ikea Helmer Hack

I am temporarily living in a tiny space, sharing a room with my man and storage is hard to come by. Ever since I saw this piece:
 from the Lilly Pulitzer furniture line at Neiman Marcus, I knew I needed something similar. I have so many beauty products and crafts that are in need of a home. Unfortunately, that piece comes in at a whopping $989.00. Mmm…yeah…no can do. Off we went to Ikea…aka Disneyland. Meet the Helmer. This little beauty is a 6 drawer filing cabinet that comes in right around $39.99. I purchased. Then I built. P.S. Just like everything from Ikea, the directions STINK. I stared at them for about 20 minutes, read them upside down, right side up, and backwards and couldn’t figure it out. Have no fear, trusty ol’ Google led me to this tutorial and it is amaze. You will need: Built Helmer, Blue tape, and Spray paint. And maybe a cute black dog?

After construction, I began to tape off the places I wanted to stay white. I had originally wanted to do chevron on the whole cabinet, but when I realized the sides wouldn’t even be shown and it’d take that much more time and spray paint, I left the sides and tops white but taped off enough to put a gold border on each side. 

Then, off to the backyard it went for some gold spray paint. I learned in this DIY that I’m a REALLY bad spray painter. Make sure you do lots of light coats, rather than one thick coat, otherwise it drips and you have to wipe it off and do it over again….fun…

I let mine dry overnight, peeled off the tape, and tada! The filing cabinet of my dreams. 

Tip: You may get a little bleeding from the spray paint, even though you taped the crap out of it. I used nail polish remover and it worked like a charm. 

The sides look exactly like the top, white with a gold border. Just look at that beauty product organization…pretty sweet feeling of accomplishment :). 

xoxo,

Hannah

Comments

  1. samanthakozak
    Monday, November 21, 2011 / 6:16 am

    Looks SO good Hannah!!

  2. Viviana
    Monday, November 21, 2011 / 5:47 pm

    Such a great project!
    Thanks for visiting Fashion Truffles. I'm now following 🙂
    fashiontruffles.blogspot.com

  3. Amber Blue Bird
    Monday, November 21, 2011 / 8:25 pm

    first off, love the name of your blog! second that cabinet came out great. Its amazing what you can do with a little spray paint.

  4. alicia
    Monday, November 21, 2011 / 8:32 pm

    you did an amazing job!

  5. Meg {henninglove}
    Monday, November 21, 2011 / 9:29 pm

    that is a terrific DIY, it turned out excellent!! love your blog

  7. Nancy
    Wednesday, November 23, 2011 / 4:50 pm

    So cute & creative!! I love it!

  8. {Oh Sweet Escape}
    Wednesday, November 23, 2011 / 5:03 pm

    hannah, you are so cute! i'm glad you found me!! i just recently bought a can of gold spray paint and i'm so excited for the possibilities! this file cabinet you did is totally FAB! wow.

  9. MFAMB
    Wednesday, November 23, 2011 / 6:07 pm

    super cute!!!

  10. Chic Coles
    Thursday, November 24, 2011 / 11:33 am

    How cool is that. great job. Would never have thought of doing that to a file cabinet. Happy Thanksgiving.

  11. Marisa
    Tuesday, November 29, 2011 / 6:11 pm

    Great Ideia!!! it turn to be so beautiful!!

  12. Michelle
    Wednesday, November 30, 2011 / 9:08 pm

    LOVE This!!!!!

  14. Mandy
    Thursday, December 1, 2011 / 1:54 am

    Smart girl! Fabulous!!!
    Love it if you link this up to my party going on at Project Queen – "Turning the Daunting Into the Do-able" Here is the link if you would like to do so!
    http://projectqueen.org/link-party-11-turning-the-daunting-into-the-do-able

    PS. Love the name of your blog – my dad used to always tell me I had a taste for champagne and a beer budget! I totally get where you come from :-).

  16. Bree_52
    Friday, June 29, 2012 / 4:16 am

    wow this is amazing I need to try the same since I myself am in the same situation living in small room with my partner.. thanks for the idea

  17. Asher
    Wednesday, March 6, 2013 / 5:05 pm

    I have been staring at my filing cabinet thinking about how ugly it is lately. I'm definitely gonna paint it! Thanks for the tip!