Sometimes a project takes a week, a month, maybe a few months. And other times it takes years…3 to be exact.

You always see people do a whole room renovation in a month, or even a week. That definitely was not the case with this space. This room has been years in the making. But I think we are finally done, at least for a few years 😉.

It all began when I was pregnant with Asher and we knew the girls were going to have to share a room. Bunkbeds made the most sense to give them more floor space. We finished a month before Asher was born and that was enough for their room makeover. We added furniture we already had in there and that was that.

Then over a year later, I wanted to give them better organization and more rainbows. You can read about that makeover here. I really think at that time I was in a creative rut and scared to do what I always dreamed of, so I substituted it with painting the beadboard, cube shelves and more rainbows.

But there was one thing that was always missing, one thing I wanted to do from the beginning but was scared to…a dresser shelf built-in on the side of their bunkbed.

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This year, I finally got the courage to go for it. And that brought on the final stage of their room renovation. Before getting to the built-in {I wanted that to be the final piece}, I gutted their closet {see more here} and redid their other dresser {see here}.

And that brings use to the best supporting character there ever was {the bunkbeds will always be the main character 😉}, the dresser built-in.

I was inspired by sarahflipsit when she did exactly what I envisioned but never could quite figure out how to execute.

It all began with a dresser, an IKEA dresser to be exact.

I don’t have a step-by-step guide because there was a lot of winging it along the way and a lot of it depends on your own space. But honestly, it wasn’t as difficult as I made it seem for the past few years. You can see the whole progress on Instagram in the bunkbed builtIn highlight or these reels {reel 1, reel 2, reel 3, reel 4, reel 5}.

There was a lot of chopping of the dresser legs + top, building a base for the dresser to sit on and then attaching it to the wall.

Then came the shelf which I built out of 3/4” plywood for the top of the dresser + sides of the shelf and 1/2” plywood for the back of the shelf, securing with pocket holes + wood glue. Once that was attached to the wall, I trimmed everything out using 1/2” mdf, that included adding trim to the dresser drawers so that it would all match up {plus make it look more high end}.

The second to final step was paint. After trying to talk myself out of using the paint sprayer 3.2k times, I finally worked up the courage and I am so glad I did. The finish is perfection.

The final step was adding in a couple of shelves using 1x2’s for the supports against the shelf and 1/2'“ plywood to secure on the top, bottom and front. I decided to do this last because I painted them a fun green color to add a fun pop.

Add in new knobs, some baskets and completely get rid of the rainbows to add a fun decals and the room makeover is officially complete.

If you have any specific questions about the built-in build, drop them below. Otherwise, let me know what you think!

with love, andi

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