From Rast to Retro

The fella and I are big fans of a concept called “the landing strip.”  I am not referring to personal hygiene, but rather somewhere to put the items that would otherwise become clutter; keys, sunglasses, purses, mail, what have you.  In the previous domicile we had a wall mounted shelf, but we both agreed the Modage needed something special. 

We bought a Rast 3-drawer chest from Ikea for 35 dollars.  Special enough for you?  I didn’t think so.

Before	After

 
It is an indisputable fact that Ikea hacks are fun.

We assembled the frame so that it had sides, a top, and a bottom.  Then, because we didn’t want visible bolts, I carefully filled the holes with sandable, stainable wood filling compound.

Those gray blotches mean I did my job

Pine is a softwood and doesn’t always take stain well or evenly.We applied a pre-stain conditioner so that the color would be somewhat more consistent.  We chose the stain Minwax has dubbed “Provincial’ because we wanted something that would compliment our floors.

I want so much more than this provincial life….

We had to have a project board cut to create a bottom for the dresser; the legs had to screw to something. I finished assembling the drawers while the fella screwed on the mounting plates for the tapered legs we purchased from the hardware store.

He’s got legs!

A bit of twisting and the chest soon had legs too.  We applied a coat of quick drying, water based polyurethane.  I added some shiny nickle hardware, because opening up the drawers is kind of important.  That’s about when the hail storm started, so we shut the garage door and let the poly cure a little longer.

What you can’t see are the little balls of ice, bouncing into the garage.

 We put it right next to our door and accessorized with my groovy record bowl for maximum landing strip effectiveness.

The landing strip still needs a few more items for optimum usage (a mirror would be swell.)  Like everything in the house our entryway is a constantly evolving part of our house, but the Retro Rast is a great addition to the Modage.