Cart Redo // 2 Ways | {Kali & Megan}

Kali's IKEA Cart Update:

A few years back, when Zac and I were still living in Des Moines in our rented townhouse, we took a weekend trip to Minneapolis. The one thing I had to do before we left was take my first-ever trip to Ikea. I didn't have anything in particular in mind that I needed—nor did I really have any money to spend on anything significant. My best (and actually most expensive) purchase from that trip was this $20 cart.



This cart was super useful while we lived in the townhouse—I used it for makeup storage in our oversized master bathroom. However, when we moved into our new house in Lincoln this past fall, I wasn't quite sure where I'd use it because our current master bath is quite a bit smaller.

As I was talking to Megan about my office redo, she came up with the idea to use the cart in my office, mostly for decor purposes. I wanted to use gold accents in my office, so I decided to take this cart from silver to gold.



I, for some very unfortunate reason, did not get the DIY/crafting gene that my mom and sisters have, so this seemed like a simple enough project for me (and Megan even helped!). I first cleaned up the cart as it had been sitting in our garage for awhile. The shelves popped right off, so we only had to tape off the wheels.



When the cart was prepped, we took it out to the garage to spray paint. We used Rust-oleum Metallic Finish gold spray paint (my mom tells me this is the best gold spray paint to use!).



The spray paint dried within 20 minutes and we only needed a few coats. It was a very simple project that instantly gave this boring cart a super-chic look!

Here's the finished product:



And, here's how it looks decorated now in my office!:





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Megan's Vintage Cart Update:



A few years ago, I found an old kitchen cart at a garage sale for $10. I really liked the olive green color and figured I could definitely use it for something. I've moved several times since then and have used the cart for many different purposes. Now that I'm settled into my new apartment, I decided I wanted to use it in my bathroom to hold jewelry, towels, and other bathroom necessities. Olive green really just doesn't read as a bathroom color to me. I love bathrooms that are bright, crisp, and clean, so I decided I was going to spray paint the cart white.



It turned out to be a super simple project. The two bottom shelves unscrewed from the legs and once they were off, the top shelf popped right off the legs. One thing I really dislike about prepping for painting is taping. Luckily, since I was able to take the legs off, I got to skip that part!


^^ Because the cart already had a shiny surface, a gloss spray paint needed to be used (like the one shown here).
I was able to finish the project within a day, using only one bottle of spray paint. The cart needed three coats total.

Here's the after!: