I’m super excited about today’s project! Spring is in the air and although I have a black thumb, I have been swooning over all the beautiful greenhouses I’ve seen online lately. Although this greenhouse is tiny, it’s affordable…and gold! This DIY gold mini greenhouse from Ikea might be my favorite Ikea hack yet.
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I was super excited when Ikea’s 2014 catalogue came out and they had the Socker Greenhouse featured in it. A cute greenhouse for less than $20? Sold. I picked it up at Ikea last week and knew right away it would be the perfect hacking candidate. 😀 I took it home for a makeover—and you can too!
First up, gather your supplies
- Ikea Socker Greenhouse (you can find it online at Amazon right here, but it’s quite a bit more expensive. If you don’t have an Ikea around, use this glass terrarium instead—it’s similar!
- Martha Stewart’s Gold Liquid Gilding
- Foam Brush
Even the greenhouse at Ikea comes with fun directions and pictures. 🙂 My plan was to paint the outsides of the greenhouse with the gilding and I was super excited to see that the plastic sides were not only wrapped in a sticky layer of plastic, but they were also easily removable from the frame. I opted to remove all the pieces, leaving just the metal frames.
I then enlisted Scott to help me and we used foam brushes to cover the entire outside of the frame. It was my first time working with this product, and I loved how beautiful the gold finish was! Luckily even the box it came in was able to be used as a painting mat for us to work on. 🙂
After we finished the outside of the greenhouse frame and were waiting for it to dry, we went a little crazy with the gilding. We could also call this post “we must gild all things”. 😀 First we tried to gild one of the books I converted into a notebook– isn’t it pretty? 
Then, I found a pair of crafting scissors that were red. Red, boo! So, I decided to make them gold instead. Much prettier. 😀
Then we found a plain white-framed mirror, and decided we’d rather it be gold…so Scott gilded it for us. You might recognize it as my diy rope mirrors twin!
The next day, after it was dry, we put the greenhouse plastic sides back in the frame, and put it all together again. I decided to leave the inner frame white, since the gild had a strong scent and I wasn’t sure how plants would do with it. You all will be proud to know that I put REAL plants in it, and fought the temptation to get plastics. 😀
You can leave the top of the greenhouse fully closed, fully open, or partially open. How cool is it??
I love the color it came out to be! Isn’t that gold finish gorgeous? And…if you don’t like plants/flowers, that’s okay! Fill it with books and glitter dipped feathers. Or whatever you happen to have on hand. 🙂
Now go make one of your own! 🙂 It’s super easy, promise!!
Lovely idea! Can’t wait to try it out myself 😀
You should! And if gold isn’t your thing there are a lot of other lovely colors you could choose! 🙂
I bought this, but am unable to remove the glass from the frame to paint it. How did you do it?
I saw this the other day at Ikea but they only had the display. I’m already planning another Ikea trip next month so hopefully they’ll have them in stock them. I’m with you on gilding all of the things. My house looks like King Midas took a stroll through it. haha 🙂
It took me a bit to find them Rachel! They were kind of sneakily stacked somewhere nowhere near the display. Kind of want another one, but have to cut myself off at some point. CRACKING UP at King Midas. hahaha!
Super cute idea! I really like the gold paint – so on trend right now.
Thanks Char…I just can’t get enough!
lol! I’m chuckling at you guys painting everything gold, including the scissors.
Super cute! Plants scare me though, I once killed a cactus.
Haha Samantha don’t worry, me too. I also killed a succulent! 🙂 I thought those were impossible to kill.
I just bought this and assembled it. The SOCKER greenhouse is incredibly poorly designed, unless I assembled it wrong. Basically if you ever try to pick it up by anything other than the very base, the bottom will pop off and the entire thing will collapse. They couldn’t figure out a way to attach the bottom to the rest of the walls?? I’m very disappointed in IKEA.