IKEA Dombas Armoire Hack

Last week when I revealed my bro's recently updated apartment, I made a promise to share how we managed to make his armoire totally rock.

We knew we wanted to find an armoire that boasted enough storage for all of this clothing, linens and other personal belongings, since his apartment didn't have any closets.  My first instinct was to check out IKEA since they boast a large selection of armoires and have reasonable prices.

During our trip to the store, we took our time looking at all of the potential options, and both agreed that we really liked the Hemnes PAX.

However, we weren't all that excited about the $430 price tag.  For a back to college student trying to furnish his first apartment, it was just far too much to spend.  Time to get real about what he could afford.  It looked more like this....

At $130, it the DOMBAS armoire came in at $300 less!  YAY for us since that money was put towards bedding, a desk, shelves, accessories and lighting!  Boo for the fact that it looked like a piece of standard stock garage cabinetry.

Giving the armoire face lift only cost us a couple extra dollars in wood, some leftover chalkboard paint and a quick hour of our time.

We ran to the home improvement store and picked up about eight 3/8"x2" boards.  From there, it was a basic game of measure, cut, nail.

My Mr. cut the pieces of wood with a simple miter box.

And used his brad nailer to attach them to the fronts of the armoire.

We started by framing the faces of each armoire door first.

And then we used a few of the remaining wood pieces to add horizontals.

A little wood putty...

And the armoire was ready for the chalkboard paint.

The armoire was a melamine material and had glossy edge stripping around the outer edge of each door, therefore, I knew I could only paint the fronts of the doors without too much complication.

The paint covered well on the wooden strips, and did a little smudging on the melamine board since I didn't use a primer.  I used a foam roller to ensure thin, smooth coats.

The first coat acted as a great base, after the first coat was dry, I re-coated with another two.  The process was nice and quick, chalkboard paint tends to have really great coverage.

The reason we went with chalkboard paint for the front of the cabinet, was because my brother really wanted to mix and match blue, white and black, and chalkboard paint makes a really great black.  But most importantly, it allowed me to eliminate the need for a large dry erase board, to manage his busy college schedule... {which I so kindly wrote out for him}

We were all really happy with how nicely and easily the armoire transformed from something so blah to something with a little more umpf with just a few basic and simple supplies.  Of course, I also love that is acts as a piece of multi-functional furniture and cost a fraction of the original inspiration piece!

What have you been hacking lately?  Anyone else playing the high/low game?