"Labor day" labor of love

Mr. T and I have been searching for extra storage for our little apartment for a while now, even before we found out we were expecting a baby. My research led me to the IKEA RAST three drawer chest. It is made of untreated solid wood, which means that it can be treated with varnish or paint. The website Bemz shows you all the different ways that you can revamp the RAST dresser to make it your own.

Today we decided to buy two RAST chests to make them our nightstands/chests for the baby's clothes and diapering supplies. Mr. T stained and varnished the top and sides and painted the front of the drawers. I lined the bottom of the drawers with wrapping paper for a little pop of color. The fabric knobs were done based on this wonderful tutorial from Sew Tara. I wanted to use clear acrylic knobs or hook pulls, but they had to be ordered online or were out of stock in store.  One day when we're tired of these knobs we'll change them for more sophisticated ones. Right now we're really happy with the outcome of our "labor day" labor of love. 

Supplies I used:

2 Rast drawer chest 

MinWax stain in red chestnut
Water-based Polyurethane 

Clark & Kensington paint 

Fabric scrap 

mod podge 

Knobs and screws that came with chest
thick wrapping paper 

BEFORE: Rast 3 drawer chest from Ikea

Mr. T assembling the Rast chest

Stained and varnished

Our dog watching my husband work. I think she was bored.

AFTER: The finished nightstand/baby chest

A little bit of whimsical

Update 09/16/2012: Found these old knobs when we redid the kitchen and decided to use them on our chests for a more adult sophisticated look. What do you think?