My Dressing Table

There's no doubt about it, any girl who is remotely interested in beauty simply needs a good dressing table in her life.

For so long I was using a make shift dressing table made out of a set of white wicker bathroom drawers (that had a very obvious deep red stain on it, courtesy of the time one of my shelves fell down for no apparent reason and a bottle of wine I got for my birthday smashed all over my wooden floor...) and part of my old desk. So when I say make shift, please don't have visions of some creative DIY situation. It actually was utter crap. And to add insult to injury, there was no natural light anywhere near me, so I had to be very careful when applying foundation. But, I was a poor student and didn't have money to spend on luxuries like dressing tables. Then, when I left uni I spent about a year being a poor employee who's every spare penny was spent paying off overdrafts and such like. However!  Earlier this year I managed to set aside some money, and I was able to persuade my mum to take me in her big spacious car to Ikea so I could buy a whole new shebang. And then, with the help of Nick (who I'm not sure had ever built any furniture before, but took to it like a duck to water), the above was created. And I was/am so happy with it! Aaand I moved a few other bits of furniture around in my room as well so the whole set up is now very much in the line of natural light so yay - no more orange face and panda eyes (hopefully...)

As you can see, like everyone else, I have the Ikea Malm dressing table. It's not the most beautiful of dressing tables but it's very practical and since it's so plain, it's really easy to personalise to your own taste. I can see it sat in an ultra modern pad, a vintage / kitsch room with maybe some doily type affair under the glass top, in a teenagers room surrounded by posters of 1D etc. The list goes on. It probably wouldn't be my first choice of style, but for the price and the practicality it's a winner in my eyes (I also bought the Alex draw unit (9 drawers) but you can't see them in any of the pictures).

I would have opened the drawer underneath to show my actual make up organisation, but it's neither interesting or tidy. My make up collection is pretty standard (there's no high end or wacky products in there) so it would be a very boring picture! However, to organise the drawer, I use two of the Ikea Stödja Cutlery trays, which are extremely handy for setting various bits a pieces into different sections.

As I said, the vast majority of my set up is from Ikea and yes, I know it's all mass produced and the world and his dog has their furniture from there but I think the price, quality, practicality and design really makes up for it. But I think if you get a few bespoke pieces as well that makes all the difference - the cutey pie little swan with the cotton wool buds in was from a charity shop, as was the floral bowl holding my nail varnish, my mirror is from TK Maxx, the wooden star hanging off my mirror is also from TK Maxx (by the way - how awesome is this?! I'm not really a star "person" but thought it was a great change from the usual wooden hearts!), my cat ring holder is from eBay, and then the tray I put my perfume in is from the Van Gough museum in Amsterdam (haul post with it featured is here).

I have linked all I can below, in case anyone is interested:

• Ikea Malm Dressing table
• Ikea Stödja Cutlery tray
• Ikea Trensum mirror
• Ikea Knubbig table lamp
• Ikea Snärtig vase with Wilkos artificial flowers (classy ey!)
• Cat ring holder
• Ikea Rektangel vase (used to store make up brushes)
• Ikea Förtjust tea light holder (used to store cotton wool pads)
• Ikea Skurar candle holder
• Ikea Alex Drawer unit with 9 drawers

Until next time :)