Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Dresser to Entertainment Console

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Three things happen to me when I get an idea for a project.  
  1. I get consumed by it
  2. I am frugal.  
  3. I get bored easily.
With those three things in mind, let me tell you about my latest project.  The mission that has consumed me the last few weeks/months has been to locate a bedroom dresser to upcycle into an entertainment console for the family room.  

Consumed Part - 
I scoured Pinterest for ideas on what I wanted it to look like.  I searched Craigslist daily, to no avail, looking for just the right dresser.  I even contemplated breaking into my sister's house and stealing the dresser out of her master bedroom.  I kind of considered using the one in my daughter's childhood bedroom, but quickly ruled that one out.  That set I'm saving for another project someday.

Then one day, it happened.  I found it.  The dresser I was going to give a makeover, too.  Whew!  The guilt I was feeling over wasting so much time on the "hunt" was overI found the dresser on a local site.  It was well made, priced inexpensively and it came with a bonus end table that the seller threw in for free.  Two pieces for the price of practically nothin'!  

Here's the dresser before.
  

Here is the free end table before:

I love the cup pull on the end table and I was actually going to use that style on the dresser, so it was a bonus that the table already had it!

We went to work removing the old handles from the dresser, puttying the holes and sanding both pieces.

Look at the dresser in this next picture.  See the curved bottom of it?  Well, that was too bedroom furniturey looking to me.  We covered that up by wrapping the bottom 4" with a piece of pretty trim.  You'd swear the new piece had been there it's whole lifetime.  
FRUGAL PART
The top three drawers of the dresser came out to make room for a shelf.  We were able to use a piece of scrap wood that we had cut to size.  Cost - $0.  Love that!  

Once everything was sanded and the putty dry, we used some satin black paint we had on hand (doesn't everyone have a paint stash?)  and got busy painting.  Notice anything about the picture below?  The "oops" is that we painted one of the top row drawers (which were smaller) instead of the two middle small drawers.  We caught the mistake and quickly painted the right sized one before we got too far in the process.  We drilled holes for the cords in the back of the dresser.

    
After they dried, we sanded the edges and gave them a distressed look.  Once that was completed, we vacuumed them really good and used a tack cloth to get all traces of dust off of them.  Following that, we stained them with an Antique Oak gel stain.  

Frugal Part Again -
Here they are drying and waiting for their new drawer pulls to be attached.  I found the oil rubbed bronze drawer pulls for the dresser on Ebay.  I've had great luck in the past with cabinet knobs and drawer pulls on Ebay.  I bought 8 of them and they cost less than $20 delivered right to my door.  It would have cost a lot more had I bought them at a home improvement store.  

Bored Part - 
After the stain had dried, I applied a coat of furniture wax to both pieces.  What a pain in the patootie that was!!  Ugh.  I really went about this the wrong way.  I applied the wax to both pieces, covering every little section of both.  I waited for them to dry.  Then I went to town removing the wax.  I was so excited to get it done.  That excitement didn't last long.  I'd say a half hour into removing wax I realized that this was going to take me FOREVER.  I'd remove a little wax, then walk away and do something else.  Remove a little more wax, then walk away and do something else.  So on and so forth.  As the sun started to set, I realized that the longer I procrastinated the harder the wax was drying and I was only causing more pain and arm torture for myself by not sticking to the task.  I pushed through.  I even got out toothpicks and tried to get all of the wax out of the grooves of both pieces.  Tried being the operative word.  The toothpicks were cheap toothpicks and kept breaking.   That's ok.  One day when I'm bored working on some other half finished project, I'll tackle that wax with better toothpicks.  

Finally, FINALLY, both pieces were finished!!!  Want to see them?*  Here they are!  (The glass piece for the end table isn't installed yet as you can see in the picture.)

There you have it.  Let me tell you!  It looks rockin' good with our circa 2005 GINORMOUS TV on it.  My Best Buy Salesman son cringes when he comes home to visit.  "You really need a new TV Mom!"  I'd show a picture of it with my retro TV, but don't want to cause anybody to regret their own choice of having a new fangled flat screen.  (Big TV's WILL be back!  Mark my words!)  Anyway, I snapped the pics above when I was home alone and there was NO WAY I could move that monster of a TV by myself.  

The only drawback to this wonderful makeover project is that I have to dust every single day now.  Black furniture shows dust.  Oh, well.   It's still worth it.  I am in love with both pieces.  

*Please pretend you didn't notice that my family room is lacking wall trim.  If you are lucky enough to own an old house, (mine is 100+ years old) then you know that an old house is never finished.  There are always projects to be done.  Which is exactly why there is a magazine called "This Old House" (to which I am a subscriber) and a TV show of the same name.  (You should get that magazine.  It's the only one I make time to read.)  

What's next on the project list?  Well, I started stripping my hutch and buffet of a finish my grandma put on it 40+ years ago.  It's been my dining room set for 25 years.  The best/worst part is I started stripping it the WEEK OF THANKSGIVINGI know!!  What was I thinking?  I wasn't!  I stopped working on it to concentrate on turkey day and because I became bored scraping all that gunk off of it.  It'll be done someday soon.  I think.  When it is finished I'll show it to you.  That project is costing me nothing but time and $12 for a bottle of Citristrip.  Everything else is free to completely make it over.

Stay tuned...OH WAIT!  I almost forgot!  The top mirrored hutch part of the dresser.  Remember that?  Well, I've been looking for ways to repurpose that, tooSo far I've seen them turned into puppet theaters and mirrored hanging bar shelves.  Neither of those ideas appeal to me.  If you have any suggestions for ways to repurpose it, let me know.   Pin It

3 comments:

  1. Wow! It looks amazing! I can't believe how much it changed. And the wax looks fine!

    Have a blessed and wonderful day!
    karianne

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is another great project!! as for the mirror hutch what about something amazing for outdoors, potting station?

    ReplyDelete

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