IKEA shoe cabinet makeover

A few years ago I was given an IKEA Sandnes shoe cabinet. I found the style of it very practical. It hides the shoes but also takes very little space. 

I liked it until we had done some work to the entrance hall of house. I kept seeing other shoe cabinets such as the Hemnes, that were more decoratively suitable for our house and more in tune with other furniture such as my repainted IKEA dining tables. It felt a bit silly throwing or giving away a perfectly good shoe cabinet, so I embarked on a new project:  to give it a makeover.

In terms of tools and materials, I used an electric sander (with it’s makeshift dust bag!) and an electric drill for the screw holes. I tried without and just could not get the screws in.

I used some ‘chalk white’ Rustoleum chalk paint, some gold spray paint and some handles from eBay. 

In terms of how I went about it, I first sanded the cabinet with some coarse  sandpaper then some finer sandpaper. It was quite dusty from sanding so I  gave it a good wipedown before proceeding to paint.

I first used masking tape to cover the ‘main’ area of the cabinet and sprayed the feet with the gold metallic paint. I let that dry long enough that I could mask it when I moved on to painting the rest of the cabinet. For this step, I applied 2 coats of chalk paint. I let it dry overnight.

The next day I found the brushstrokes were too obvious in the paint so I sanded it some more (manually) with some very fine paper to smooth it.

To apply the handles I first measured up to ensure I got the handles centred and lined up. Then, I drilled guideholes and finally screwed in the handles.

Et voila!