Office Update: Hale Navy IKEA Cabinet Makeover

Tips for painting laminate IKEA furniture and the best navy blue paint color perfect for adding pop to a neutral room.

It’s a good day for an IKEA furniture makeover! (Side note: I really miss the long, blissful strolls through that gigantic Swedish mouse maze.)

Back in April, we had no idea when IKEA would open back up so we shelled out $100 to have two IKEA Liatorp cabinets delivered for the office.

And you know what? Zero regrets. Because even with that hefty delivery fee, these were still way cheaper than all of the other storage cabinets I’d looked into and they fit this space perfectly!

UPDATE: Want to check out the home office final reveal?! See it here.

(Some affiliate links are provided below. Full disclosure here.)

If you missed the journey thus far on our home office makeover, you can catch up here:

• Our Home Office Makeover Plans
• DIY Closet Build
• Painting the Office Chantilly Lace
• Easy DIY Closet Shelves & Converting Bifolds to French Doors
• DIY Large Scale Wall Art from a Shower Curtain

Here’s the thing about painting IKEA furniture. You have to know the method (which I’ve shared before). Because if you don’t, that paint will just peel riiiiiight off.

But extra tip about painting glass storage cabinets (or any glass furniture) especially… this little can of Masking Liquid is worth every penny. Trust me on this.

I wiped down the entire piece with Liquid Deglosser, brushed on the Masking Liquid to let it dry, and applied a coat of KILZ Adhesion. That’s the trick.

I prefer to use Benjamin Moore Advance on furniture that I want to cure to a hard finish but want the flexibility to customize the color. (Fusion Mineral Paint is a second fave of mine if you’re okay with choosing from a set collection of colors.)

So I sampled a bajillion shades of blue.

And I landed on Benjamin Moore Hale Navy, which is pretty much the best navy paint color of all time!

I already managed to store some things in the cabinets. And we hung up these curtains, these curtain rods, and rolled out this rug.

It finally feels like a real, almost pulled together room! (Minus some construction dust on the floor but we’ll pretend that’s not there.)

They look so perfect alongside our DIY shower curtain art we made a couple of weeks ago!

That finish line is almost in sight.

Here’s what’s left on the office makeover to-do list now:

Office Makeover To-Do List:

• Build pair of closets
• Install double French doors
• Paint walls & ceiling
• Install closet doors
• Build closet shelving
• Move air vent
• Paint doors
• Hang art
• Hang curtains
• Assemble furniture
• Paint cabinets
• Install lighting
• Decorate & style

And if you want more IKEA makeovers and hacks, you can find a bunch of them here.