Elevate a cheap Ikea TV stand with wooden dowels and paint!
I’ve had this TV stand for years, and so it felt high time to give it a face lift. I love the mid-century modern furniture hacks that I’ve seen on other blogs, and felt really inspired by this sideboard on Made. I decided to add lengths of dowel vertically, for a slightly different look, and wanted to keep the whole piece black. I think it could look really nice in a beige or a dark green too, but really you could paint it any colour you fancy. I didn’t go around the entire piece with dowels but you definitely could, and I left a gap at the front for access to any storage I might put under there in the future. I made this during the festive period so our lights were still up, though to be honest, they probably still will be by the time this is posted haha! If you fancy this really easy hack for yourself, keep reading to find out what I used and for the step-by-step tutorial…
1.
First of all, assemble your lack TV stand if it isn’t already and ensure it’s nice and clean.
2.
Using a mitre box and saw, cut your dowel lengths down to 25.3cm lengths.
3.
Starting at the edge, use No More Nails to stick lengths of dowel around the top of the stand. Use another dowel as a spacer for where to stick the next.
4.
Cut small squares of thick cardboard or thin wood to bump out the dowels that will go where the shelf is (as this is slightly further back than the legs).
5.
Continue sticking the dowels all the way around or as far as you would like them to go. I chose to go all around the sides and to have 7 dowels on either side of the front.
6.
Use black chalk or furniture paint to paint the dowels so that they match the rest of the stand. If you want to paint it a different colour, first use a shellac based primer all over, and then paint with your desired furniture paint.
7.
Leave to dry and paint a second coat if needed.
