Don’t tell anyone, but this modern farmhouse sideboard is actually an Ikea hack! You wouldn’t know it by looking at it, but this cabinet is actually three Ikea Rast chests pieced together!

We also added some rustic pipe shelves that I am absolutely in love with! The stained wood shelves complement the painted wood buffet and add a beautiful deep contrast to the white sideboard (which we finished with milk paint).

I was searching for the right white farmhouse style sideboard to buy for our kitchen/dining area and couldn’t find anything that I loved in the price range we could afford.

I wanted something that looked like a farmhouse dresser, but at the same time, functioned more like a rustic sideboard.

I didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars because we had just dropped a cool bundle buying the house, so the idea of spending a fortune on furniture had us both cringing.

PS: If you know the difference between a sideboard and a buffet cabinet, please let me know. I cannot figure it out. Truth be told, I didn’t really know what to call this piece because it really is in essence a farmhouse dresser (and could definitely be used for that purpose, but more on that later) but lives it’s life as a dining room storage unit and it seems to be perfectly content in it’s current role).

So I scoured the internet and came up with my inspiration: this Ikea Rast media console hack from In Between Chaos.

I immediately fell in love with the piece, even though it was too large for our space. It also was a little too low for a buffet or sideboard.

The piece in our home was going to have to be multi-functional. I needed something to hold a lot of our lesser-used kitchen implements: extra coffee mugs, specialty baking supplies, serving pieces, kitchen linens and even grill tools since it’s located right next to our patio door.

The hard part was that it also needed to be counter-height so that it could also act as a buffet table/ serving station when we have guests over for holidays.

I knew that the farmhouse media console piece had the look I wanted, but as it was designed in that post, it was too large for our space, and it was short: the Rast dressers are only 24 inches tall.

This post will cover all the basic assembly of the cabinet unit itself from Ikea parts, as well as all the customizations, trim and things we added to get the finished “farmhouse dresser” look, and to get it to the right height for our purposes.

I think someday we may invest in a real dining room hutch, but for now, we are loving our white sideboard that we made ourselves! We have even said that it would make a great dresser in our guest room someday if we do replace it for the current purpose.

What else can you do with this rustic sideboard?

If you don’t need a white buffet cabinet, you can paint this any color obviously. But what if you don’t need a buffet cabinet at all?

I think this shaker sideboard design (or the original one linked above) would both be awesome for a number of uses:

• farmhouse dresser (the drawers are a little shallow, but would be good for a guest or child’s room)
• farmhouse tv stand
• farmhouse media console
• rustic entry cabinet (one of those great foyer catch-alls for mittens, bags, keys, etc.)

What do you need to build this DIY sideboard?

• 3 Ikea Rast dressers
• 4 – 2″ metal corner braces
• 5 – wood legs
• 1 – 6′ glued edge board
• 1 x 2″
• 1 x 3″
• 1 1/2″ lattice
• 2 – 1 x 12 x 6′ boards
• hammer
• 2″ wood screws
• 2″ finishing nails
• power drill ( we love this one )
• wood glue
• clamps
• sander
• miter saw
• finish of choice (we chose milk paint)

Rustic Sideboard Plans: