After five weeks of the The One Room Challenge® – I can finally say that my Ikea Pax built in closet system is officially the prettiest shade of French blue! This week was all about paint, and while it was a bit of a marathon, I’m thrilled with how beautifully it turned out.
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Catch up on my previous ORC posts here:
Everything I Used
Here’s the full list of supplies that made this paint project possible:
- Zinsser®B-I-N® Shellac-Base Primer
- Benjamin Moore’s Advance Cabinet Paint in Airway 828 in a satin finish
- Trim Brush
- 6” foam rollers
- 6″ Disposable paint tray
- Aluminum foil (great for lining your tray, so you don’t need to wash between applications!)
- Painter’s tape
- Scrap cardboard from the Ikea boxes (for protecting floors and corners)
- Sandpaper block
- Tack cloth
- Step Stool – I love this one for reaching my 8′ ceilings without needing a ladder. It’s wide so it feels extremely stable, and has grip tape on the top making it feel even more sturdy. It also folds up for easy storage.
The Paint
When planning the color palette, I wanted the closet to flow seamlessly from the adjacent bedroom, which is painted in Benjamin Moore’s Bunny Gray 2124-50. In my home, it reads as a soft, dusty blue and appears much deeper and bluer than the sample. I knew the closet needed to feel connected while leaning a bit more intentionally into blue. My goal was a shade that felt cohesive and elegant, but still light, airy, and not too dark. It also needed to coordinate beautifully with the striped wallpaper I ordered, which adds that classic, French-inspired charm I love.
After sorting through what felt like every blue paint strip at the store, I finally landed on getting a gallon of Benjamin Moore’s Airway 828 in a satin finish. The brand describes it as “balancing blue and violet, this crisp periwinkle has a light-as-air feeling” and I couldn’t agree more. It’s the perfect soft French blue. It’s elegant, calming, and just a touch sophisticated. The color matched the swatch beautifully. While it initially went on slightly lighter (as paint often does), it dried true to tone without shifting darker or cooler. The shade is very reminiscent of an endless summer hydrangea.
I used Benjamin Moore’s Advance Cabinet Paint, which has self-leveling properties and cures over about five days. Once cured, it leaves a super smooth, hard finish which is ideal for high-traffic areas like closet cabinetry.
The foam roller did leave a very slight texture, which is only visible if you really lean in to look for it, and is complementary to the adjacent walls. Spraying would provide a smoother finish. For reference, the photo below is extremely zoomed in, showing a section of wood that is only 1.5″ wide.
Since I plan to wallpaper the backs of the wardrobes with wallpaper. I didn’t stress about perfect edges inside the cabinets. Once the paint cures and wallpaper is installed, I’ll add back all of the shelving which I painted at the same time as the closet for a seamless look.
To make painting the shelves easier, I screwed these small hooks into the sides and hung them from clothes hangers inside one of the wardrobes. It saved space and made the whole painting process so much more manageable.
After finishing all the wardrobes, shelves, and trays, I still had about a quarter of the paint can left which will be enough to use later when I spray the crown moulding to match.
The Primer
For the primer I used Zinsser®B-I-N® Shellac-Base Primer. Estimating how much primer I needed was tricky because I didn’t want to spend hours calculating exact square footage, especially with all the different sized sections I planned to paint. Here’s what I ended up covering:
- 1 wardrobe inside and out
- 3 wardrobes on the inside and front
- 1 wardrobe on just the front
- 1 wardrobe on two exterior sides
Plus:
- 7 skinny shelves
- 3 large shelves
- 2 big slide-out trays
- header & baseboards
In total, I used about 75% of one gallon of primer. I initially bought a quart, then bought an additional gallon.
I think a good rule of thumb for estimating how much primer to buy, when partially painting Ikea wardrobes for a built in effect is to plan on using about 10% of a gallon per wardrobe, then add an extra 25% as a buffer. In my case, that worked out to roughly 85% of a gallon total (10% × 6 wardrobes = 60%, plus 25% as a buffer for the amount of interiors).
I’m usually not too sensitive to paint smells, but this primer definitely had some strong fumes, especially in a small, enclosed closet. The tight corners (like the back of my long-hanging section) were the toughest and they required a few fresh air breaks.
Painting the Wardrobes
Overall, painting the wardrobes was much easier than I expected. The process was definitely long and repetitive, but manageable. It took about three half-days of work in total.
My only real regret? The doors.
I installed the doors initially because I extended the wardrobes to the ceiling, and I needed them in place to space the header evenly above them. I decided not to remove them, thinking it would help preserve their longevity. Instead, I painted around the hinges. While the doors had some factory applied tape on them, in hindsight, I wish I had taped the edges of the doors with wider painters tape because my not-so-perfect brushwork left some extra paint behind. It’s fixable, but cleaning it up will take way longer than just taping would have. Lesson learned!
The Process Step by Step
- Apply painter’s tape
- Lightly sand the wardrobes
- Wipe with Tack cloth
- Apply 1 coat of primer
- Let dry overnight
- Lightly sand again (especially drips or debris)
- Wipe with tack cloth
- Apply first coat of paint
- Let dry overnight
- Sand lightly
- Wipe again
- Apply second coat of paint
- Let dry completely
- Remove tape
What’s Next
Follow along over the next few weeks on Instagram as I continue building out my dream closet. The closet may be painted but we still have wallpaper, crown moulding, & organization systems left before it’s fully functional again!
