How to Make A Double Campaign Chest

Thanks so much for all the love on my campaign dresser + gingham drapes post yesterday! I am literally obsessed each time I walk by Weeks' room and it makes me smile to see it coming together! So, I am glad y'all shared in my enthusiasm and appreciation for the space so far..thank you :)

Today I am going to run over the quick steps of how we accomplished the Double Campaign Chest. I had been itching to use the Young House Love hardware on a piece of furniture, and as I did a little brainstorming I decided that the Ikea Rast was the perfect piece!  We've all seen plenty of transformations on the Ikea Rast, so it's not reinventing the wheel or anything...however, it did turn out pretty good. And since I like to see steps, I did a simple documentation of our process along the way!

First, assemble your Rasts. I planned on doing it myself and Stephen couldn't resist helping me. He was surprised that they were actually made out of wood and not a fiber board :)

Next, we attached them together. First, Stephen used some wood glue on one side of the dresser and attached them side by side. The glue is a little extra reinforcement to keep them in place and also make sure it is firmly secured throughout the whole dresser. Then, he used wood screws to screw the two pieces together, as seen below... You want to use a screw that isn't too long that wont poke through the other side. {I believe these were 1 1/4"} He did 6 screws all together: top and bottom of dresser- 2 in the front, 2 in the middle and 2 in the back. You will need to remove the drawers for installing the screws. 

Once the two dressers were attached, we could tell it was a solid unit and were pleased with how easy it was so far! Here it is, now one unit.

One thing about the Rast I have never been too fond of is the way the sides are taller than the top of the dresser. I knew it would drive me nuts not to have a completely flat surface, so we then attached a piece of wood, cut the length of the top of the dresser.  We used a piece of good quality pine, adding a little more wood glue on pieces that touch to attach it to the top of the dresser. More wood screws securely attached the top board to the dresser, so it now looks like this:

Next came the finishing touch: the trim piece! I knew I wanted to do this because I saw how nice of a look it gave our living room bookshelves. We used a piece of trim on the three sides to provide a finished ledge and fill the gap you see above. In order to do this, you would need to make miter cuts and have a nail gun to attach the trim.

Next comes the part that makes it look like a quality piece of furniture. I used wood putty to fill every crack and nail hole. You also want to fill the holes that the provided knobs were supposed to go in, if you are using the campaign hardware. Once that is all dry, sand away any rough patches. You are ready to paint! We primed it, lightly ran over it with a sanding block and then it got several coats of Valspar Furniture Paint, in Simply White.

The finishing touch is of course the Campaign hardware. It was a little tricky for me to get each piece positioned just right. I learned quickly Stephen needed to pre-drill the holes for all the corner pieces in order for me to get it right. He saved the day with pre-drilling those holes, thank goodness.

I couldn't be happier with how it turned out, and am so happy we pulled this one off {painlessly!} Let me know if you have any questions, I am happy to help :)