My $20 Ikea Desk Makeup Vanity

I first posted about my freestanding DIY vanity light HERE, and then I posted about how I fixed up an old chair from a local flea market HERE... NOW I want to share my actual vanity space! Can you believe that I paid less than $100 for this entire space?! I'm talking desk, mirror, lighting, chair and accessories! I'm the type to shop Craigslist, Goodwill, Thrift stores, etc to find what I want because I knew I could put some love into something and create magic which is basically what happened. It all started with my half bath vanity light that was switched out after buying a prettier one. I went on the hunt for a desk that would serve as my vanity. After much searching a deal popped up on Craigslist. I found this Ikea desk there for get this... only $20. Pretty unbelievable right. It had a few dings/paint scratches here and there but nothing serious. I scooped it up right away.

Now it was time to figure out how I wanted to decorate it. What's funny is I was looking at this same desk on Ikea's website in all white so God was looking out for me with this one. I picked up a few accessories from the Dollar General... yes, the Dollar General. They surprisingly have a lot of cute stuff for cheap.

"Be-You-Tiful" and "Be You/Bright/Happy"

Can you believe both of these together was $5? I know... what a steal. Oh and I just found the pink flowers for $1 at the Dollar Tree. I'm planning to attach/tape them to ink pens and use the glass jar for my pens and scissors.

Moving right along... I found my mirror at a store called Dirt Cheap for only $7. It was black and I spray painted it white. I used the same spray paint on my chair... Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch Paint + Primer in gloss white. I purchased this at Home Depot. I also found that letter N at the Dirt Cheap store for only 88 cents. Yes, you read that correctly... $0.88! I knew I didn't want the orange drawers and went back and forth with myself as to what I wanted to do with them. I thought about painting them but I really didn't feel like the hassle. Then I thought... hmmmm, I could just covered them with a sticky vinyl paper. Then I had to think about what I wanted it to look like. I wanted to find a white paper with some type of gold design on it but that was a bust. I wasn't finding anything close to that. Then as I was walking past the Cricut accessories in Joann's I stumbled across these rolls of glitter vinyl by Cricut. When I saw the gold, I was sold...AND it was on sale that day at 30% off (on sale for $6.29/roll). One roll was more than enough to cover my drawers and cabinet door.

Now I must say this stuff is not the easiest to put on. The drawers weren't so bad since the pieces were smaller. But the large piece for the cabinet door was almost a nightmare to get on. You have to imagine this stuff is just a big piece of tape. I've put decals on walls before, using a card to slowly press it into place. I thought I would use the same technique to roll this stuff on. sigh... it was not cooperating. It was almost impossible to keep the bubbles out and when there weren't bubbles it would wrinkle. Here's a closer pic of the long drawer. If you look under the word "Beautiful" you'll see where I accidentally tore the paper after pulling it up to reapply one too many times and just played the wrinkled piece there. I glued my (painted white) wood cutout over that area to kind camouflage my mistake. Did it work? Enough for me lol.

Inside my vanity I found some pinks bins from the Dollar Tree for (of course) $1 a piece. I absolutely LOOOOOOVE the outcome of my vanity. I'm still planning to add another light to left side. The light will come from my upstairs bathroom. So once I find a new light for that bathroom I will be able to knock out that project to complete my lighting. I may add some things along the way, like a fluffy rug for my feet. All in all, my space makes me feel pretty. :) What do you think?