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All Dressed Up – Turn An Old Dresser Into A Kitchen Island

Hey Guys Meet Rosa! Rosa is a Brooklyn girl, where she offers DIY workshops. She’s a mother, she’s a wife, and she’s a self-taught carpenter obsessed with Doing It Herself.  She makes dope furniture, including turning old outdated pieces into something new and innovative.   Rosa blogs at 7thperiodshoppe.com where she shares the ups and downs of running a family and a business.

Rosa here, and I’m so excited to share my latest furniture rehab story with you all. So there’s a bit of a back story to how I ended up here with a series of varied dressers. About a year ago I started renting my workshop, after growing tired of hearing complaints about the endless amounts of sawdust and paint traced throughout the house. So, here I am with this vast shop, vast compared to my living room lol, and I’m all like I don’t have anything to in here. I hadn’t had a list of orders just begging for refurbished or any furniture for that matter. I felt bored. What do I do when I’m bored? Two things eat, and Pinterest. Welp, for once food isn’t to blame, Pinterest, damn you Pinterest! While perusing the interwebs that is Pinterest I found all these great ideas about dresser upgrades, Wow! I could definitely do some upgrading, I thought. So, On from Pinterest and straight to CL and 7- 10 dressers later here I am. By 7 -10 dressers later I mean I’ve accumulated a mess and have refurbished none, until now! Yea you’re reading that right 1 year and 10 dressers later here I am finally starting. A normal person would’ve stopped at 2 but, nope not me. So finally, without further ado, let’s get started!

Meet Ethel, they all have names. I don’t remember where she came from, was she free or low cost? I do remember that I had a vision when I saw her and never lost it. What she ends up looking like at the end of this is how I always envisioned her.

First thing, was to remove the drawers, and just give a once over for structural integrity.

On the outside, she was strong as an ox I just had to make sure the same went for the inside, and Ethel was in good shape. I left the drawers out that I wouldn’t be using and gave her a quick wipe down.

I moved on to sanding, I always, always, always sand, even with those paints that say no sanding necessary because I find that no matter what sanding is always necessary.

I won’t judge you if you skip sanding, I mean I probably will lol but who cares. I used to sand every piece down to bare wood, but I ultimately realized that THAT was unnecessary. Complete waste of time. Sand, vacuum, wipe down with tack cloth, move on.

Prime and paint.

Here’s where things got a little exciting. I bought a paint spraying gun and it took me longer to figure out how to use it than it should’ve because I didn’t read the instructions. Silly girl! But I finally read it and it was oh so simple. I bought a more professional type, I already own a DiY brand and I just didn’t have great success with it so because I hate brush, roller, sponge painting I invested in this kit. The upside to this was that I was able to get in those annoying curves and nooks like nobody’s business, but the downside was that I was done entirely too fast, like 20 mins fast.

While I waited for the paint to dry I began cutting the shelves out, the butcher block top and the chalk board block. Thanks to my hoarding ways I had enough scrap that I didn’t have to actually buy any wood. I used a 1/8 board cut down to my desired dimensions and sprayed it with chalkboard paint. To attach this to the back just use wood glue and nails around the edges where they are less like to be seen.

The Shelves were made out of 1/2 board and edged with some cove molding.  Things got a little hairy here. The dimensions of the shelves were wider than the outside face. Initially, I hadn’t realized this. I took the measurements and cut the board and thought I was just going to slide it right in, Wrong! Had to cut it down the middle no biggie tho. Then I thought I was just going to lay the board on top of the shelves already there. Wrong! again. I had to now take a hammer and knock out those shelves, just because the new shelves wouldn’t lay flush on top of the old shelves. It really wasn’t a great problem I just would have rather done this before painting. Finally, I was able to just slide the shelves in. I used wood glue and screwed from the underside up,  wood filler to fill the seam of the two boards.

The top is 3/4 Ply edge with 1×2 which I mitred to give a more seamless look. Glued and Screwed together. Attach the block with wood glue.

The second coat of paint was applied and all the pieces attached.

For the final touches, I added a butcher block top and painted inside the drawers blue.  What do you think?

Ethel is all dressed up and has to go!

 

 

 

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2 Comments

  1. That turned out really great! Love the blue drawers. Can you please tell me which sprayer you use, I am in the market for one. There are so many choices and price ranges, I would like a recommendation.
    Thanks

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