IKEA Leksvik Buffet Before + After
You’ll love this IKEA hack! Elena Ferrer, aka Meisi, is a graphic designer and illustrator who lives in Alicante, Spain on the Mediterranean coast and is quite a crafty lady! She recently took her tired brown Leksvik IKEA cabinet, fixed the broken door and then thought that if she just emptied the cabinet, painted it in a gorgeous shade of aqua, and stenciled the door that perhaps she could make something that nobody notices in her home a thing of beauty and function. In a single day, she transformed her unloved dark brown “boring” cabinet into something personal in a style that reflects her taste and style. After the paint dried, she decorated her cabinet with favorite things, including her collection of books, fabrics and yarn.
I like that Elena printed the stencil for the doors onto paper, cut out the motif and then used paint and a sponge to apply the paint in a pale beige. See the cabinet BEFORE here. What a change, right!? It’s so inspiring to see how far a can of paint and some creativity can go!
Thank you Elena for writing to me to share this with decor8 readers today.
(images: elene ferrer)
Facebook
Pinterest
Twitter
Google +
Flickr
LinkedIn
June 30th, 2011 at 5:43pm
Oh, this is absolutely beautiful!! ;)
June 30th, 2011 at 5:53pm
So cute!
Love the color especially!
xo
Luciane.
June 30th, 2011 at 6:03pm
THANK YOU VERY MUCH HOLLY!!!!! I’m so happy to be here. Really my cabinet is now much beautiful and personal. I have enjoyed a lot painting and decorating :D
Thanks again for the chance to show it to so many people :)
June 30th, 2011 at 6:12pm
colors and especially flowers on the bottom lids are wonderful
June 30th, 2011 at 6:45pm
So adorable!
June 30th, 2011 at 7:11pm
Wow, I love this! You can do so much with imagination, paint and some work. The color is perfect!
/Kristina
June 30th, 2011 at 7:36pm
What a wonderful and cozy piece that has been transformed from Ikea to personal, heirloom. Great job!
June 30th, 2011 at 7:56pm
What a difference some color makes– I love seeing projects like this where someone has re-imagined something they already have! So lovely:)
June 30th, 2011 at 8:06pm
Yes, that’s really a big difference, loved the afterversion:)
June 30th, 2011 at 8:40pm
Great job! So inspiring – makes me want to look at everything in my house with new eyes.
June 30th, 2011 at 9:45pm
Beautiful … including the cat : )
June 30th, 2011 at 9:51pm
What a lovely idea – and it turned out so well! Thanks for sharing!
June 30th, 2011 at 11:25pm
I love this! What a great idea and I love the paint color she picked.
July 1st, 2011 at 12:36am
I have never been to an Ikea, but want to! Love to see where a good imagination can take you….
July 1st, 2011 at 12:46am
Simply beautiful! I love that colour:)
July 1st, 2011 at 1:33am
Great idea, is beautiful. Also, I just got your book, every page is an inspiration. Thank you for this great book.
July 1st, 2011 at 2:49am
I love this too. Do you know if she had to use a primer first? I have an old IKEA computer desk armoire, but I’m not sure what it’s made of. It may just be cheap particle board, but I’d love to paint it. I just don’t want to make any mistakes and ruin it in the process, no matter how inexpensive it is.
July 1st, 2011 at 4:19am
Wow. Adorable cabinet & fabulous color! Ikea is great!
July 1st, 2011 at 7:53am
This is actually a great idea! Ikea is very affordable and this goes to show that you CAN personalize their pieces too – though probably should stick to the bit higher end pieces, like this one. ;)
July 1st, 2011 at 9:07am
Leksvik is pretty on its own but this colour makes it pretty even more! Nice job.
July 1st, 2011 at 11:53am
really really nice
July 1st, 2011 at 1:22pm
@Mariela – Oh thank you, I’m so happy to know you like Decorate and are finding inspiration from my book! :)
July 1st, 2011 at 1:36pm
this is amazing!
July 1st, 2011 at 5:10pm
So wonderful! I love seeing the little factory from Etsy as well–I have that shop listed in my favorites.
July 1st, 2011 at 5:44pm
I love the site this is beautiful!
July 1st, 2011 at 5:44pm
HI!
Maria, I didn’t make anything before the painting, Leivsvik has a wood touch so I considered there were nothing to remove before. Maybe it had a little varnish layer but seemed invisible to me.
And Holly of course I had read your book. :) And I did it very slowly. I had a special time before going to bed every day to concentrate in the photographs and its fantastic sense of aesthetics. :)
July 1st, 2011 at 6:20pm
@Elena – Oh how nice, I love to hear this. :)
July 2nd, 2011 at 10:27am
I love it! Beautiful colour!
July 6th, 2011 at 11:36pm
I just painted my same exact hutch white. i removed the glass doors on the top.
http://lalalandhusser.blogspot.com/2011/07/dining-room-update.html
I LOVE the color you used. I might have to re-makeover the hutch again
July 8th, 2011 at 6:48am
I admire you for your creativity and i definitely try this on my own..
January 10th, 2013 at 5:10pm
I’m trying to find someone who would know how to fix the glass cabinet doors of an IKEA dining hutch that looks very similar to this. The left door keeps coming off at the top corner at the seam (not the hinge). Duct tape (yuk, I know) on the inside that doesn’t show worked for a while, but now the bottom left of the door is not staying either, so we have unattached now so the glass won’t fall. Wood glue did not work. I love this cabinet. Can anyone help?
January 12th, 2013 at 11:20am
This is so inspiring! I found this already a long time ago and keep coming back just to remind myself that you can make things look like yourself. We are having a “let’s do something with our home”-day with my boyfriend and I think we are painting/fixing something to totally new look.
Have a nice saturday! :)