Ikea Alex for nail polish storage!

Source: Ikea.nl

Hey ladies! I was in desperate need of some more space to store my polish, preferably something stylish and practical. I was looking for something with shallow drawers because I like to lay my polishes flat, so I can look at the pretty colors and determine a palette for my art. After a looooong while of googling, visiting thrift stores and eyeballing other people's polish storage, I chose one of the Alex drawer units from Ikea (there are several models). I want to share my experiences with you, so click, click!

This is my old storage. I know what you're thinking! It looks wibbly wobbly  and just not very pretty. The top drawers have all kinds of nail supplies and art stuff in them, while only four of the bottom drawers held my actual polishes. So you see I was in need of space!

Oh and yes, I have a pink couch <3

Problem: I had two colors of polish per drawer. While one drawer still had room, another was spilling over but my OCD wouldn't let me sort them any other way!

Solution: Bigger drawers!

So I got in my little car and drove to Ikea. This thing is €100 over here (the Netherlands) but I had an accidental trick up my sleeve. The black cover for my Ektorp couch had a terrible accident in the laundry. It shrunk, in an awful way, it made my cushions look like marshmallows XD The main cover didn't fit my frame anymore so I had a problem. Luckily, they have an AWESOME return policy at Ikea so I got to switch my cover for a white one, at no cost. Only... the white one is only half the price, so I got €50 back. Good! That's already half of my Alex unit! The other half was a birthday gift from my parents, so that worked out perfectly!

Here's the unit all ready to be put together.

Don't let all the loose bits scare you, if you're a take charge kinda woman (or man, apparently 4% of you are men, so hiii!!!!), just take charge and put this thing together! I did it all on my own in exactly 80 minutes. And that included getting all the necessary tools together, and sorting the different screws and bolts.

Some parts are tricky, but you'll figure it out! The instructions were really clear and it was easy to distinguish similar looking screws because they show them together, and tell you which one NOT to use. Very convenient!

I was just scared that I'd scratch the exterior while putting this unit together. The paint is easily damaged, as I noticed while putting in the screws in some places. I can't imagine taking it apart for a move or something, you'd definitely have some paint chipping here and there.

Tadaa!!! The whole unit is just so chique and I love how it's not a deep black, but a kind of dark slate grey. I'm actually working on the walls of my room right now, I'm SO tired of the dirty white textured plaster, it's been here since the room was added on to the house about 20 years ago. Time for something new!

There's SO much room for polish! It has six drawers so I have my pinks and purples in the top drawer, blues and greens (also teals) in the next, then all remaining colors in the third drawer (this includes glitter toppers and multichromes), and my art supplies in the fourth drawer. ALL of my nail art supplies fit in here, and I'm also storing base and top coats here as well as some other supplies.

Ofcourse my glow polishes are kept in a separate drawer to minimize light exposure, and the bottom drawer has some other trinkets and stufsies.









All in all, this drawer unit is perfect for when you want your polishes laying down. I have enough room left in these three polish-only drawers and my stash sits around 150 polishes now, I think? You could easily store 500 in these drawers, if you want your polishes laying down. It's in no way bad for your polish or your bottles, but I do understand the practicality of having them stand upright. I just do things my way :-p

Also, take a fun look back at my very first storage solution, the home made nail polish case! Ofcourse, I made a tutorial for a nail polish case a few months later.