Ikea Malm drawers change table nursery upholstery makeover

Before Baby was born I prettied up this double width chest of Ikea Malm drawers we bought for his change table.

The idea for the project came from this tutorial and I posted about my inspiration here.

In hindsight, this probably wasn't the best project to undertake heavily pregnant as it involved a fair amount of crawling around on the floor, but I'd still rate it a pretty easy DIY.

I knew I wanted a fading ombre look and chose this scale of yellows in plain cotton.

I used a thin piece of quilt batting underneath the fabric to give the front of each drawer a nice squishiness. I laid each drawer, face down on a cut out rectangle of fabric with the batting between them.

Then I got busy with the staple gun. Pulling the cotton tight over the edges of the drawers

and folding around the corners.

To finish off the inner edges of each drawer and hide the staples from tiny fingers I used fabric tape from Bunnings. Mine was white because the drawers were but this stuff comes in heaps of colours.

I gave each drawer a few coats of Scotchguard as I finished it to project it from grubby fingers. And that's it. We're four and a half months in to operation Baby now and the drawers are holding up well.

I didn't use any glue in this project as the staple gun held everything tightly enough. I like the idea that down the track when Baby is older I can remove all the fabric and return the drawers to their original state or redecorate them without too much drama.