After following thinking it over for many months, and reading multiple guides on how to do this, I have finally motivated myself to create some studio rack furniture using the Ikea Rast nightstand.
I would like to point out, because it is not stated clearly (or at all) in other posts: To mount the rails to the Nightstand, you will need to use 1/2″ wood screws. This is because the thickness of the wood is only 3/4″ inch. I found most other guides to be lacking in pointing this out, and I actually bought the wrong screws at first.

Sources for this post include Kenneth Ballard’s write up, as well as this Instructables post, and this Reddit.com post. I differed slightly in that I mounted the 6U rack rails on top, but I also mounted 2U rails separately in the middle. There are guides that show you how to use the whole nightstand as an 8U rack, I essentially just did it the hard way.
The 4 step guide is:
- Buy everything you need (1/2″ wood screws {I bought a 100 pack}, rack rails {6U, unless you plan on modifying the Rast build or stacking two}, one or two Ikea Rast nightstands, and if you are stacking two, some mending brackets)
- Build the Rast nightstands. This is an easy step.
- Stack the two nightstands and connect them using the mending brackets – I also used velcro in between the two to further secure it, although this seems like overkill in highsight. Alternately, if you are only building one, skip this step.
- Mount the rack rails wherever you intend on mounting them.
If I were to do this again, some things to consider:
- Stain the wood to make it look a bit nicer
- Attach some handles to make moving this a bit easier
- Attach some casters to the bottom to make this a mobile rig
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