Before & After: From IKEA to Dorothy Draper

Nancy from Marcus Design took the Rast dresser from IKEA and DIY’d it into a Dorothy Draper-inspired Hollywood Regency accent piece for her bedroom. Check out her step-by-step instructions and try this at home!

Nancy’s first step was to prime the surface of the dresser and spray it with two coats of black lacquer spray paint from RustOleum. She then blew up inspiration photos of Dorothy Draper’s dresser (image 5) until the decorative motifs were the right size for the Rast drawers. Using the blown-up photos, she traced the motifs onto tracing paper, which she used to cut a stencil with an Xacto knife (she had some help from her handy dad). Nancy used Liquidtex’s Iridescent Rich Gold to paint on the motif, going over it freehand to fill in the gaps from the stencil. Finally, Nancy added elegant bronze ring pulls.

The result is two gorgeous Draper-esque dressers for just a few dollars more than the price of the Rast ($29.99 each).

Get a more detailed step-by-step on Nancy’s blog, Marcus Design.

Images: 1-4 Marcus Design blog; 5 Craig Van Den Brulle on 1st dibs.