DIY Rast Wine Cabinet

Materials: Materials needed: 2 Ikea RAST 3-drawer chests ($34.99) Wood for shelves, wine rack, side supports, and top shelf (I used 11 & ¾" x 12" boards for the in between shelves, 12" x 12" squares for the side supports, and a 6’x1’ board for the top) Wine rack- 36"x1" dowel rods cut down to the length you need (I used 11 ¾" x 11 3/4" but measure twice, cut once) Lots and lots of screws L-shaped shelf brackets Straight brackets for side supports Wood glue Wood putty Drawer handles Stain (large container) Polyurethane (I used a spray) Tools needed: Screwdriver Drill Hammer Paintbrush and stain sponge/cloth Tape Measure Level Saw (optional- I had the guys at Lowes cut mine for me)

Description: First things first, I made a pilgrimage to Ikea in Cincinnati where I spent tons and tons of money on things I absolutely totally needed. Like a wok. Which I have yet to use. I picked up two of the Rast dressers, which are $34.99 a piece, but incredibly basic and super ugly. Especially those wood knobs. Yikes. A follow up trip to Lowes netted me the remainder of my supplies. All in all, I spent around $150 on this project.

Step by step:
1. Put the Rast 3-drawer chests together per the instructions provided by Ikea. 
2. Install the shelves between the two dressers using L-shaped shelf support brackets.
3. For the side supports that hold the top board to the Rasts, all I did was screw a plain bracket into the back of the RAST and the back of the side support, then I used wood glue all along the edge where the two pieces meet. Finally I drove screws through the top piece into the side supports. This really, honestly, did not work that well. It was pretty shaky, and if I had to do it again, I would drill holes in the bottom of the side support/top of the RAST and use small dowels to hold them together. Those pocket screw things were too expensive and required too many tools I didn't have access to, or else I would have gone with those, but alas, the problem gets solved in a later step.
4. (optional) One thing I did here that also I recommend is take the bottom out of the upper lefthand drawer and bracket the two drawer fronts together on the inside. This made a double drawer for tall things, which has really come in handy for storage.
5. Install the new drawer handles.
6. Put wood putty in the screw holes on the front of the RAST where the drawer knobs were supposed to go and in the screw holes all over.
7. Install the wine rack. I googled "DIY Wine Rack" for a really long time and eventually came up with this design which encompasses a lot of different things that I saw. In a nutshell, I made two rows that hold 5 bottles of wine each. The middle section is a little wider to hold large bottles of wine. The space between the two dowels needs to be about 3.5" apart or smaller to hold your (regular sized) wine bottle. I screwed the upright dowel rods from the top only, because once the horizontal pieces are in, they will be set in place. I screwed the first level to the shelf and the middle level to the upright dowel rods on each end.
8. Stain the whole thing following general guidelines for staining.
9. Spray or paint the whole thing with polyurethane. I used a spray and did 3 coats.
10. Make/buy/have some decorations for the top and enjoy. I seriously love mine, it's functional and nice-looking!

See more of the Rast rack.

~ Anna Girard, Lexington, KY