Category: Entryway

IKEA Stockholm Sideboard Review

Somebody sent me a message recently because he was thinking about picking up the same IKEA Stockholm sideboard that I bought for our entryway. Questions about it come my way pretty often, actually. Do the doors stay even? Has it held up well? Would I recommend it? Yes, yes, and yes. It’s my favorite IKEA purchase to date (which is saying something because I’ve owned many a piece from IKEA over the years), so I thought I’d offer a review.

I bought mine two years ago, shortly after moving in to our house, because I was looking for shoe storage in the entryway. I didn’t want “anything too precious since it’s going to be used on a daily basis by the whole family” and I deemed the style, scale, and price right. The sideboard comes in a painted beige finish for $389 or a walnut veneer for $449. I like the painted version for my house because it already has so much woodwork, but the walnut finish looks good too — much better than some IKEA wood tones of the past (I’m looking at you, orange beech).

We keep shoes inside, so I added cushioned shelf liners that can easily be removed for cleaning or replacement. The kids have the left half, and the adults have the right. Besides shoes and bags on the shelves, their drawer holds things like sunglasses and floppy hats during warmer months, and winter hats, mittens, and gloves when it’s cold. ‘Our side’ has things like a lint roller, comb and small brush, and reusable shopping bags in the drawer, the bottom shelf has a few pairs of shoes, and the other shelf is home to our baby wrap and diaper bag.

I spent some time adjusting the doors so that they would hang evenly when I first assembled the sideboard, and I haven’t had to do anything to them since. There are push-open mechanisms inside, and in my house, they’ve held up to a fair amount of abuse from the kids! The doors can be left plain but I drilled holes in mine for knobs. If you want to do the same, remember to leave enough clearance for the drawers inside. I’d hate to see someone make the mistake of drilling right at the top and then having the back of the knobs keep the doors from closing. And another note on choosing knobs — if you have kids and they’re anything like mine, you might want to go with something that doesn’t need to be aligned in a certain direction. All three of my kids spin them around, either on purpose or by accident, so something round would have been a better choice.

The Stockholm sideboard is sturdy and surprisingly heavy, making it feel like a good solid piece of furniture that should hold up long-term. My only complaint is that two years in, the top has a few small scratches and dings in the painted finish. They aren’t noticeable enough to bother me, but they are there. I’ve always thought that it would be nice to find a remnant of marble or travertine to top the sideboard, so that’s an option if the scratches worsen over time or I just feel like updating the look.

I’ve had people over who have commented on how nice the sideboard was, and they’re always surprised when I say that it was from IKEA. I highly recommend it.

November 19, 2015
The Entryway, Painted and Updated for Fall

This post is sponsored by Target.
Shop Home Décor for modern luxury made easy.

I nixed the teal idea for the entryway and went with a dusty blue/green/gray. Teal would have played beautifully with the wood, but I felt like it was going to be too much in the context of the rest of the house. Subtle is a bit better in this case.

The color is Sherwin-Williams’ Comfort Gray. It continues up the stairs and down the second floor hallway. It’s also in our bedroom, and when I chose the color, I wrote “before we moved into this house, I did tell Brandon to slap my hand away from the paint if I start trying to put gray on all the walls. But! This is more bluish!” I still stand by that because while gray is lovely, but I get tired of seeing it again and again. So then of course I used it, again. (Ha. But this is bluish!)

I’ve had that lamp for almost a decade (here it is in our old apartment, just before I started blogging), and I picked up the sideboard shortly after moving in to store our shoes. I’ve since added a boot tray below for wet shoes and boots that we can pull out as needed. The rug is vintage, as are the Thonet chairs, and the painting is by Jenny Vorwaller.

The lamp adds some much-needed light, and the bowl is a great drop spot for Brandon’s wallet and keys. We added a desk to the library, so our mail is being sorted there now instead of in the entryway, leaving most of the sideboard top to serve as a pretty display surface. So I prettied it up with a few new additions!

I love that gold polka dot vase. The house’s architecture is formal, so it’s nice to inject a little levity here and there. And please do forgive the flowers for not looking their best. They were much prettier four days prior to being photographed, but then, you know… I went into labor! By the time I was out of the hospital and able to set my camera up, the pink dahlia had just about had it, and I had to pitch most of the dusty miller entirely. (Blame baby.)

The black vase is vintage, and the Charley Harper owl was a gift. I added a few art books and a few candle lanterns. Those are pretty now for fall, but they’ll be great for holiday decorating too.

This was super fun to play around with when I was going nuts with nesting energy. It’s also really nice to come home to.

October 9, 2014
Teal for the Entryway?

I like the way open-concept homes look but I prefer to live in a house with separate rooms, and Victorians are certainly known for having lots of rooms. Ours has the entryway, double parlor, and dining room all open to each other with wide doorways (the pocket doors of which are nearly always open). If you sit in the center of our teal sofa, you could see all four rooms, and into the kitchen too.

I like thinking about the design for the first floor as a whole, since you do see multiple rooms at once. The dining room will likely get Fornasetti’s Chiavi Segrete wallpaper once we can afford to do it. (The nursery and second floor renovation is getting top priority right now.) It would look a little something like this.

Now that both parlors have been painted and I know what’s likely going in the dining room, I’ve been trying to decide on a color for the entryway. The window and door face East, but the porch and large tree out front block a lot of the light for much of the day. And there’s a whole lot of oak paneling and trim. I’ve had it in my head all along that I want to bring in more teal to that side of the house to reference the sofa, but I was going to do it through accessories and keep the walls neutral. Maybe teal on the walls is the way to go though?

BHG Teal Paint Colors

Another option is Sandberg’s Raphael wallpaper in dark blue.

I have a sample and it looks perfect, but it doesn’t work with the other wallpaper. I think that between the two, I’d rather go with papering the dining room — which brings me back to teal for the entry. I’ve been playing around with my design boards in Photoshop (you’ve seen them in various stages on the blog before), virtually rearranging things and trying out different combinations. I shared this screenshot on Instagram the other day.

I would probably go a little deeper and darker than the paint colors in that BHG palette above, but not so dark that it competes with the black in the back parlor. What do you think?

July 23, 2014
What’s Here, and What’s Staying Put

In animated gif form! I figure it’s the easiest way to give a bird’s-eye view of things.

When I talk to people, I’m in the habit of saying “we just moved in to a new house…” but we’re at about six months here now, so I think I’m wearing that line out. I shared the first and second parlor recently, but they are definitely nowhere near done. Not that I’m complaining, mind you! This house has been the most fun project to work on, and I’m enjoying taking my time with it. Here’s what’s working, and a little of what I think is to come.

The Entryway

Awesome! Done! Bang. We had a million people over last weekend for August’s party, and that hardworking entryway was holding its own just fine.

The Dining Room

I love my table. It was part of a vintage set (reportedly Henredon, though I’ve never found an identifying mark). I have six matching wooden chairs in the basement (you can see them in the old house), but the kids were forever spilling on the fabric seats and my metal chairs are a better fit for us right now. Color on the walls and some great art will go far here. I’d like a rug under the table, but is that the best idea with said messy kids? Maybe not. We did have gray FLOR tiles in the last house because we could theoretically pull a tile up to clean it, but we always ended up spot treating in place. That shade of gray is not making me happy in this house though, so it might be time to let them go.

The First Parlor

Poor little neglected room. You’ll be great soon, I promise! When we first moved in, I thought we’d watch TV in this space, but after living here for a few months, we like the television better upstairs. Our media cabinet moved up to a room on the second floor that would have been our library, and now the first parlor is going to get the built-in shelving treatment. It’s going to be amazing, as I’m sure you can no doubt see from the sea of brown in my sketch above.

I’m not sure what color the walls are going to be yet. Olive green, or emerald? Coral pink? A gorgeous blue, or a pale bluish gray? Ask me today and I’ll give you a different answer tomorrow. I’ll likely wait until after I’ve painted the second parlor and the bookshelves have been installed. Beyond that, the room needs more furniture. A rug. A whole lot. But it can wait.

The Second Parlor

When I wrote about it, I mentioned that there is a lot of placeholder furniture in the room. I don’t mean that I’ll be getting rid of it all, but it might get shuffled around and repurposed. I love the sofa. Love my fancy blogger tree (a.k.a. fiddle leaf fig — thanks for coining the phrase, Lindsay). Everything else? Not set in stone yet. The floral chair might stay put, or it might move into the library when that’s done. The rugs? That angled fireplace is definitely throwing me there. One thing to come that I’m sure about: the room is going dark. I’m narrowing down my paint color choices now.

I saw this room today, which has a lot of the elements I’m going for. Dark walls, botanical print, boxy chairs, wood, and brass. My taste has definitely changed since I started on the first house in 2007, and the apartment before that (which was before I started this blog), but I’m excited to see where it leads.

February 12, 2014
The Entryway (Again), with its New (Old) Runner

Let’s forget about the not-so-pretty photos from yesterday, and instead look at a runner that IS working.

Saving on the sideboard meant I could put the extra money toward the proper-sized runner for the space. It’s a vintage Persian Koliaei rug, about 50 years old, that I bought from eSaleRugs after Jenny’s recommendation. It seems like they have 50% off sales pretty regularly, the shipping was fast, and my rug arrived in great shape.

I like that the blue randomly changes midway through the rug. I laid it the other way at first, and it seemed off — like the lightest part should be nearest to the light source of the window and front door.

The runner called for switching things up a bit, so I’ll find places in the house elsewhere for the pink and coral painting, Heath Ceramics pottery, and blue dhurrie that you saw here before.

Also, I swapped out the off-white plastic outlet cover on the floor for a wood one, and it blends in much more nicely now. A small detail, but it’s nice to have it done.

I saw this painting pop up in Jenny Vorwaller’s Instagram feed and I scooped it up right away, but I had to wait a few months because it turned out she was about to hang it in the downtown Seattle Anthropologie. Isn’t it gorgeous? The name is “Warp and Weft” — very appropriate to be talking about it in a post about rugs. I like it in the entryway, and I’m perfectly fine with it not being completely matchy-matchy. I do kind of want to steal it away for the bedroom though, so I’m not sure if this is its permanent home.

Can you imagine how awesome it’s going to be when the weather gets nicer, and we can have the front door open with a view of the pretty Victorian screen door?

This is the first space people see when they come over, and the first thing we see when we come home. It took a few months, but it finally looks and functions the way I wanted it to.

January 30, 2014
Sources for the Entryway
I put together a guide for my entryway that I’d posted last week! I love making these boards.
1. Antique Thonet Chair, One Kings Lane
  Mine was a really nice hand-me-down from Brandon’s mom, but you can always find a similar chair one by searching for antique “Thonet” or “bent wood” chairs.
2. Abstract Painting, Kurth, Michelle Armas
  This would bring in the blue I wanted for the entryway, but the painting I already have there is also by Michelle Armas.
3. Oak Hall Tree, Oak Hall Tree
  Ours is opposite the stairs, and came with the house (we negotiated for it).
4. Rope Basket, Target
  I bought two of these. Eleanor claimed the other to use as a nest for her toys and stuffed animals.
5. Vintage Scout Trophy, eBay
  I have a girl and boy trophy, one for each kid. I picked them up for a song at a local antique shop.
6. Single Stem Vase, Heath Ceramics
  This was a souvenir from a trip to San Francisco, city of my heart.
7. Bud Vase, Heath Ceramics
  Same. The colors on these are always changing seasonally, so mine are a smidge different (more coral).
8. Pothos, photo from Plant Care
  A cheap houseplant that’s easy to care for.
9. Porcelain Wood Bark Planter, Throwback Artifacts
  Mine is a small tree stump that was painted silver, and I picked it up at a local flower shop a few years ago. This is a good match.
10. Square Lacquered Gold Tray, West Elm
  I picked this up last year when I was all in OMG-Christmas-magazine-photo-shoot!! mode. Now it’s nice for holding mail.
11. Jayne Glazed Ceramic Table Lamp, Lamps Plus
  I bought mine at least 10 years ago, but they’re still available in a slightly different shade of brown. (Plus a few other colors, too.)
12. Kabuki Cotton Dhurrie Rug, West Elm
  Similar in feel to my vintage dhurrie, and the runner’s only $34 on sale. More alternatives at the end of this post.
13. Stockholm Beige Sideboard, IKEA
  Check your local store, as it’s not on the site yet.
14. Antler Melody Knob, Anthropologie
  These look fantastic on the sideboard! I’m including a few other choices below, too.
Personalizing the Sideboard

The doors on that sideboard have a mechanism that opens them when you push, but I added knobs for more detail. These were four options I had considered.

Flushmount Ring Pull, House of Antique Hardware • Antler Tusk Knobs in Cream and Neutral, Anthropologie • Rope + Metal Knobs, West Elm

I decided that the jute was a little too casual, but the brass ring pulls were a strong contender. I went with the Antro knobs because I was able to see them in person first and I liked their scale and dimension. The lighter ones with brass are pretty, but the darker color looked better in place. I am a little concerned about the durability of them, as noted in some of the reviews, and if they don’t hold up I’ll probably get those brass ring pulls as a replacement.

In case you’ve never drilled to add knobs or pulls to a piece of furniture, here are a few quick tips. Use an inexpensive plastic template to get the spacing even, make one out of paper, or just measure and mark with a ruler. A piece of tape on the front protects the surface of the furniture and also makes it easier to see the pen/pencil mark you’ll make with your template. If you’re concerned about the back of your door chipping (common with particle-board), clamp a scrap piece of wood to the back and drill into that while making your holes. To find the proper drill bit size, test out the knob you’re going to use in each bit’s empty slot (you want the smallest one that will fit the screw/post). Drill, remove the tape, sweep or vacuum up the sawdust, and insert your new hardware.

Rug Options

I love the design of the vintage blue dhurrie that I have in the entryway now, but it is the wrong size and shape. I’ll find a new spot for it in the house as soon as I find a vintage or antique runner that fits the space better and isn’t too expensive, but that I like just as much. In the meantime, here are a few options that have with a similar look.

Kabuki Cotton Printed Dhurrie, West Elm • Grayfriars Wool Kilim, Sundance Catalog • Semi-Antique Tribal Moroccan Rug, eBay
December 16, 2013