I Transformed an IKEA Find into a Stunning Vanity for Just $20
In the nearly five years since I moved into my apartment in Los Angeles, I’ve had a problem finding the right piece of furniture for one specific need: gettin’ ready. As someone who loves to experiment with different bold eye shadow colors, eyeliners, lipsticks, and DIY nail art, I need a vanity I can organize products in, with an easy-to-clean surface for mixing-and-matching colors and a big mirror to see the whole picture of the lewk.
The first one I bought was too small and painted a dull gray, but a friend loved it. So I traded her for a vintage wood secretary desk. That piece wasn’t set up in a way that made sense as a vanity, with deep cubbies that makeup got lost in — so I went on the hunt again. I thrifted a large vintage mirror with a border of stunning embossed resin fruit for $10 that was going to hang in my entryway, but then I thought … what if I could replace a mirror on an existing vanity with this beauty?
A quick search on IKEA’s website brought me to the GRÅFJÄLLET dressing table, a sleek, simple metal vanity with a drawer and a small mirror between two curved rods. I could envision my fruit mirror in that mirror’s place, which at 32 inches wide and 24 inches tall would quadruple the reflective space to get ready in front of. Though I’d never done any DIY like this before, my dad is a MacGyver, and I tried to think like him to get the job done efficiently on a budget.
GRÅFJÄLLET Dressing Table
IKEA
$99.99
Buy Now
I assembled the vanity (which was surprisingly heavy but not too difficult to put together) and then measured the space between the two rods that held the mirror (14 1/8 inches). Next, I went to The Home Depot to find a piece that could fit there to mount the new mirror on.
After searching a few aisles of wood and realizing none of the dowels were quite right for the job, I discovered a primed white wood baluster (41 inches by 1/4-inch) for $5.48 and asked the kind gentleman working in the wood department to cut it into a 14 1/8-inch piece and a 14-inch rod piece (just in case the measurement was off).
Though I hoped the superglue I had at home could work, I grabbed some industrial-strength Velcro strips for $3.98 as a backup plan. And these strips ended up saving the day!
It took less than 10 minutes to assemble this transformed vanity. My glue wouldn’t stick wood to metal without a clamp, which I didn’t have. So I instead stuck Velcro along the entire 14 1/8-inch wooden piece, then another strip along the back of the mirror. I cut square pieces for the two ends of the wooden piece. Then I wrapped matching-size pieces around the edges of the metal rods to affix them to the wood that was already stuck securely to the mirror. It’s a little janky — but very sturdy — and also leans against a wall for extra security.
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For $120, I have a custom vintage-meets-modern piece that’s the unicorn vanity I’d been searching for. And because of the Velcro technique, I can switch out the mirror anytime I find a new cool one in minutes, which is ideal for my love of thrifting and maximalism.
My next step in this transformation will be spray-painting the desk a beautiful cerulean blue. But for now, I’m happy with the fruits of my labor — and my mirror/vanity situation!
Further Reading
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See How a Stager Used Paint to Transform a 1950s Living Room
