Adding trim and painting IKEA Haggeby drawers fronts and doors for a beautiful, bright, and modern home office makeover during week 5 of the one room challenge of spring 2021.

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Welcome to week 5 of the One Room Challenge. What do we have for this week?…PROGRESS!

I am making over an open dining area into a beautiful, modern, and bright home office for this season’s One Room Challenge.

I have joined as a guest blogger with many other bloggers in the One Room Challenge where everyone gets to makeover a room of their choice over 8 weeks.

You can see all the featured designers here and all the guest participants with a blog here.

Here is my progress over the last few weeks:

1. Week 1 – Design and plans for the home office
2. Week 2 – Chose paint colors for the cabinets and walls
3. Week 3 – Painted the room and started building cabinets
4. Week 4 – Finished building cabinets and bases

This week, I added trim to cabinet drawer fronts and doors and painted them.

ADDING TRIM TO DRAWER FRONTS AND DOORS

There were a ton of options for drawer fronts and doors SEKTION cabinets in IKEA, but I didn’t want to spend a lot on it.

Most of my initial choices were in the higher range. So, I picked HAGGEBY which was just $5 for most of the drawers I needed and the rest were just a couple of bucks more.

HAGGEBY drawer fronts and doors are completely plain which is not the look that I want. I want shaker-style doors and drawers in my home office, So I decided to add the trim myself.

I purchased this lattice trim which is just 1/4 inch thick and 1.5 inches wide.

PREPPING FOR TRIM

The HAGGEBY drawer fronts and doors are laminate and it’s not easy to paint laminate without some prep work.

In order for a laminate surface to be painted, it needs to be sanded first. I sanded all the drawer fronts and doors before attaching any trim as it is much easier to sand a plain surface.

I used 150 grit sandpaper first and then finished it with 220 grit sandpaper for a great finish using this sander.

CUTTING THE TRIM

The first step in the cutting process is to measure the lengths and widths of all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts.

Here is what I have:

• 18 x 10 drawer fronts – 12 of these
• 24 x 10 drawer fronts – 2 of these
• 18 x 60 doors – 2 of these
• 24 x 20 door – 2 of these

I took my measurements carefully and headed to my miter saw to cut the trims. I cut them at 45° angles so that all my edges are smooth.

Here are some of the first pieces of trim

Here are all the trim pieces

ATTACHING THE TRIM TO DRAWER FRONTS AND DOORS

Attaching the trim is a simple process.

All I need to do is add some wood glue to the back of the trim pieces and attach them to the drawer fronts and door using a brad nailer and 5/8 inch nails.

Then I added some spackle to fill the nail holes and joins as spackle is easier to sand than wood filler. I used this spackle as it goes on pink and dries white. This makes it easy to know exactly when to sand.

Here are all the drawer fronts and doors with trim added and sanded.

ADDING EDGE BANDING

Although, I did fill all the nail holes and the 45 degree joins with spackle, I did not fill the join between the trim and the drawer front as it would involve a LOT of spackling and sanding.

I chose to add edge banding instead. If you don’t know what it is, you’re missing out an an easy solution. Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered 🙂

It’s like a tape of veneer. I used this one.

All you have to do is place it on the surface that you like and iron on it. That’s it!

The ironing melts the glue behind the tape allowing it to adhere to the surface your are covering.

The result…a smooth surface ready for paint!

PAINTING THE DRAWER FRONTS

The next step is to paint these drawer fronts and doors.

PAINT AND PRIMER FOR LAMINATE CABINETS

As I mentioned earlier painting laminate is not an easy task. If you have been following my posts, you know that I ran a series of experiments with different primers and paints to help me decide the best way to paint laminate cabinets.

Here is a picture summary of my experiments:

Based on my experiments, this combination was a clear winner!

SANDING + DIXIE BELLE – SLICK STICK PRIMER + SHERWIN WILLIAMS – PRIVILEGE GREEN

SANDING AND PRIMING THE CABINETS

Since laminate is a very smooth surface, paint will not adhere to it easily. It needs to be sanded and primed before being painted.

I sanded the drawer fronts and doors before adding the trim. The trim did not need to be sanded, just cleaned and primed.

Infact, I cleaned all the drawer fronts and doors once I sanded down the wood filler and added edge banding. This step ensures that the surface is clean and smooth so that we get a really nice finish when painted.

I used this primer and I can swear by it. It’s so good! 🙂

I used brush to paint the primer at the edges where the trim meets the drawer front. I then used a roller for the rest.

Not only did this method make the priming go faster, but it also helped me get a great finish.

I painted the first coat of primer, let it dry for 2-3 hours, painted the second coat and let that dry overnight. Here is what the drawer fronts looked like after priming.

PAINTING THE CABINETS

I was so excited about the color I chose for the cabinets and wanted to get painting as soon as the primer dried.

Since the brush and roller methos worked so well for priming, I decided to use the same method for painting the drawer front and doors.

Unfortunately, it didn’t work as well I had hoped it would. There were brush marks and even the roller left strokes. There was visible difference in the area where I painted with a brush and the area where I painted with a roller 🙁

So I started researching on the best tool for painting laminate and found that using a sprayer would help.

I bought this sprayer and followed the instructions in the manual that came with it and Voila!!! The painting turned out amazing and in a fraction of the time it would have taken me to paint everything by hand.

WIN-WIN!!! Woohoo 🙂

It took me about 20-25 mins to paint the first coat on all the drawer fronts and doors. I let it dry overnight and painted the second coat the next day. You don’t need to wait that long. I work in the evenings and weekends on my DIY projects. Therefore, letting them dry overnight worked perfectly for me.

Here’s me, beaming with my painted drawer front 🙂

That’s it for this week! Next week I plan to stencil the wall and assemble all the cabinets. Let’s see how things go.

Do join me on the journey as my home office takes shape and comes to life during this season’s One Room Challenge! Don’t forget to follow me on Instagram for more detailed and day-to-day updates on the progress.

Check out other posts related to my home office transformation.

MODERN HOME OFFICE PLAN and DESIGN – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 1 (Spring 2021)

MODERN HOME OFFICE – PAINT COLOR CHOICES – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 2 (Spring 2021)

MODERN HOME OFFICE – CABINET BUILDING – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 3 (Spring 2021)

MODERN HOME OFFICE – BUILDING CABINETS AND BASES – ONE ROOM CHALLENGE – WEEK 4 (Spring 2021)