I live in a small space and am eyeing the IKEA Norden table. I love that it has drawers for storage and folds up nicely, but unfortunately there’s nowhere to “hide” my machine for storage.

If you’re a Norden owner, I would so appreciate if you can provide the height and width of one of the drawers because I can’t find it anywhere online (see photo, highlighted in red). I’m wondering if I can leave the bottom drawers out during assembly and build a machine shelf instead. Thanks in advance!

I’m new to the diy/crafting world and need some suggestions, hoping you guys can help. I scored a secondhand IKEA Norden table (the one with the solid birch tabletop) that I’m planning to use primarily for crafts (painting, coloring, cricut). I’m trying to think of ways to hide the likely damage coming its way; scratches, paint, etc. To clarify, I don't really care about how those things will look (though it’d be nice if it ends up looking cute!), my primary concern is making sure the table lasts awhile.

Are there things I should do to it to help protect it, or could I paint/decorate it in a way that will help hide whatever damage is done? I originally planned on painting it something cool and fun but I’m not sure where to start with that. I imagine I’d need to strip the lacquer first? What would be the best type of paint to cover it with? Any cool designs (but easy for a newbie, lol) I could put on there that will blend in/work with the scratches/random paint colors? I love bright colors. My mom mentioned something about mod podge but I feel like that’d just be adding more material to this table that’s just as likely to get damaged… then again, I’ve never worked with mod podge before.

Like I said, I’m new to this world and am open to any suggestions! TIA!