Being an urban dweller on a small budget, it's likely you at least have a few IKEA pieces in your home furnishings. If you're me, IKEA pieces are your entire home office. It's easy to fall into a rut and find yourself un-inspired by your generic table-top-and-legs combo. But an inspiring office space is just a few coats of paint away.

What do you do when your craft room needs a workspace, but all of West Elm or Crate & Barrel's modern chic offerings are too rich for your blood? You DIY, of course!

With $100 of IKEA desk separates (plus a few bucks' worth of paint), Steph at the Birdhouse Design & DIY blog transformed what would have been a generic desk into something that looks way more luxe and fits in with her colorful aesthetic.

After buying up the VIKA BYSKE tabletop in birch ($79.99, IKEA.com), Steph covered it with primer and coats of white paint to match the rest of the decor in her craft room. To give the tabletop a bit of style, she also decided to brush a pair of VIKA LERBERG trestle-style table legs ($10 each, IKEA.com) with coats of gold metallic spray paint.

Now she's got a big surface to work on, for a fraction of the price of the desks she'd been eying at West Elm. To check out more of this DIY project, including details about the paints and process, head over to the Birdhouse blog.

Birdhouse via IKEA Hackers