From dresser to Tool Cabinet

Its no secret that I love tools of any kind, whether it being kitchen tools or wood shop tools.  What I also love is refurbishing.  I like to turn unwanted items into something.  A project I have been working on is this old dresser.  I've always disliked this dresser and have even tried to sell it at a garage sale.  Despite being able to sell EVERY other piece of furniture that I placed on my lawn, this piece just sat there.  I had great plans for it, as I spoke about working on it here and  here, but simply never got around to it.

Over a year later, with a beautiful weekend, I was able to turn that dresser into my very own tool cabinet on wheels.  Its nearly done and I am SUPER excited about that.

Here's our journey.  A lot of prep work to get it looking a little, well, more plain.  I removed the curvy front legs.  It was a little ornate for my tool chest if I do say so myself.

 

That left me with no sturdy bottom for my wheels.

I added a 2x4 between the sides in the front and back of the dresser to make the bottom nice, flat and level.

It's a great place to attach my wheels I already had on hand.

Total cost so far is zilch.  I already had both the wood and wheels. 

Now, its time to beautify the thing.  I scraped off the paint on the sides of the dresser and sanded it down.  The paint on the drawers didn't come off so easily so I sanded them with my sander instead of scraping them off entirely.

I applied a de-glosser to the dresser to get rid of any oil or glossy finish to the dresser.  Since it was originally stained, I wanted to be sure that my coat of paint would last by removing any surface grease.  I knew I definitely wanted to change the hardware so I filled in all existing holes with wood putty.

In hindsight, now would also be the perfect opportunity to pre-drill holes for your handles.  Of course, I didn't think of that, but all is not lost.  It is nicer to not have to worry about messing up your finish though.

In the midst of it, I removed the curvy molding underneath the lip of the dresser and sanded the surface down.  So here is what it looked like after all of that.

Its still pretty rough looking.  Next, I applied two coats of primer which makes it look a tad bit better now.

For the final finish, I used this foam roller since I was told it would give it a smoother finish.  In my opinion, my regular small roller did the same job.  Had I known that, I could have saved myself the $4.87.  Live and learn. 

What also could have saved me time was not having to prime.  My go to paint, the Olympic no-VOC paint didn't have the color I wanted and they couldn't match it supposedly because the can didn't have enough room to add the accent colors.  I had to go with this instead which had primer already in it.

I wasn't liking the fact that I spent time priming my dresser for nothing.  I also wasn't loving the no odor I was used to from Olympic or the price difference, but what I did love was the color.  I'll gladly pay extra for it.

When I bought the spray paint I used for my yellow tray in this post, I saw this teal color and loved it.  I didn't want to buy several cans of spray paint for this dresser so I was intended to color match it, but low and behold, valspar had it in their paint department.  It's called exotic sea.

It took a coat of paint with some light touch ups.  I only used a fourth of a quart of paint.

What's next after the paint dried?  Now comes the hardware.

I love the Lansa cabinet handles from Ikea so I looked online to see if there were any available.  There were 19 available.  I was super happy so I made my trip out there to find there were only 2 packs and I needed 3.  There were 100's of all the other sizes I didn't need.  I'm talking boxes and boxes of 100's of the 9 inch, the 23 inch, the 33 inch, but there were only 2 of the 17 inch I needed.  I was so disappointed.  I searched every inch of that store and despite their website still indicating there are 19, I was able to only come home with 4 out of the 6 handles that I needed.

What's a girl to do?  I'll have to wait until they have more in stock.  I guess that is a popular size?  I debated whether or not I should postpone this post, but in this day in age of great technology, I figured, you can use your imagination on what it would look like with 6 handles or I can use some photo shopping and show you what it will look like when I get my hands on another 2 handles.

I love love how it turned out.  Aside from the 2 missing handles, I plan on lining the drawers, adding another handle to the side so that I can pull the tool cabinet around the garage a little easier.  I also want to make drawer dividers for all the little tools that I have.  I can't wait.  

I hadn't been in my garage building anything lately because of the heat and what I realized this past weekend as saw dust sprinkled everywhere, I miss it.  When I'm out in my garage, I will be doing my happy dance (secretively since I don't want any of my neighbors thinking I'm crazier than I already am), that I have something pretty to pull my tools out of!

The total cost run down is $10.47 for my quart of paint (I had a 20% off coupon),  $26.97 (for 6 handles), and $4.87 for the roller (could have done without).  That's $42.31 for this make-over.  That's not too shabby for my tool cabinet on wheels if I do say so myself.  I'll be wheel-ing with excitement for sometime with this addition to my garage.

Closet Renovation Part 3

Just looking at this picture of what the closet before gives me a headache.  It's like a toy store threw up in it.  There was just too much junk in there and no room for the boys clothes.

Clearing out all the toys took a lot of work.  My hallways were chaotic and messy, all but to create a neat space, sometimes, you first have a greater mess.  The first thing I did was remove all the shelves, but the top one on the right side of the closet.

 

Some light spackle and a coat of paint lead me to this point.  Don't mind the black shelf, I was experimenting which didn't turn out the way I expected.

 

The last step was the hardest.  I had to build out the bottom shelf with support.  That was a lot of cutting, but worth it.  The closet looks like we bought the house like that.

  

With clothes, it looks like this.

I did add another clothes rod on the bottom underneath the last shelf.  I wanted to hang as much of their clothes as possible.  I so hate folding and I like seeing everything out.  That bottom rod allowed me to hang up all their shorts.

 

The linen boxes with the taupe trim house their winter clothes.  The third shelf is home to all the linens.  I had to clear out the linen closet in the hallway for the toys that were in this closet so I needed another place to put their sheets.  More on that later.  Needless to say, I had more linens than I care to think about.

The bottom shelf is meant for them. I originally planned on having drawers for their socks and underwear, but with the new rod underneath the last shelf, I had no room for that.

 I had some storage boxes that had dividers for socks.  Underneath was another storage box for their underwear.  It was a perfect solution and it kept everything organized.

The only thing I did purchase were these linen lined trays.  I thought it was perfect to store their play clothes in.  The picture below shows these beautiful robes my sister bought for the kiddos on her trip to Viet Nam, but the tray to the left stores their play shirts.  It is so much easier for them to find the right clothes to wear.

I plan on buying 2 more trays for their gi's.  I'm tired of seeing their karate outfits all over the place.  Having it in one place makes it easier for them.

As far as the strategy for hanging their clothes, its by color.  It's been by color since day one and every one of my closets have clothes hanging by color.  I just like the way it looks.  I can find things much faster.  I didn't buy any new hangers because my kids are on the verge of switching over to adult hangers within the year so for now, I am reusing the hangers we have.

I have bins underneath the clothes for their unused hangers. They know to toss their hanger in the bin when they grab a shirt.  That way they don't have to sift through the clothes to find an empty hanger when they are hanging up the laundry.  Yes, they put away their own clothes.  I taught them young and I don't regret it for one moment.

That's the new closet in a nutshell.  I'm not quite done.  I want to buy some chalkboard labels for all the boxes and I want to hang a mirror in the closet.  Once I get those things checked off my list, I can call this project complete.  I was able to reuse a lot of the things I already owned in this closet.  I already had the linen boxes.  I bought those at Target 4 years ago.  They still sell them.  The boxes with the khaki trim (2nd shelf) is currently 22.49 each.  The square box on the third shelf is $14.99 while the rectangle box is 24.99.  The socks and underwear boxes are 14.99 each.  The rectangle shirt tray is 12.99 while the square tray is 9.99.  The red wooden boxes underneath the shirts I bought at Lowe's a few years back for $1.50 (they 75% off).  

My total purchases so far for this project are 3 closet rods, 2 rod brackets, and two shirt trays.  That's a total cost of 71.93.  Buying two additional trays, a mirror, and chalkboard labels will run my grand total to 101.91.  I am pretty ecstatic since that is far below the price I had anticipated on spending just for the closet system.  In the end, I am super happy that we have a more functional closet for our family now.

As one project nears an end, I have many more that await.

Kitchen Cabinets Done

My parents came to visit this weekend and you know what that means...my family gets fed too much food and long lasting projects finally get completed.

Remember this? I asked my father to build me some cabinets for our island during Christmas.



I finally got around to staining it, but never put on the doors because I didn't want to mess up.

Now, alas, the doors are put in place and my cabinets are complete.

The doors are identical to my original cabinets. You can see the original cabinets in the back on the left corner of the picture. The only thing missing now are some matching hardware, but I am not in a rush for that. I'm just in awe of how my cabinets turned out.

One thing checked off my list...a hundred more to go....too bad this holiday isn't longer than it is...

Bring on the battens!!!!

I laid out the battens to see if I could avoid outlets and switches, while covering all the board seams. No such luck. Fortunately, the cuts were easy.

Here is a sneak peak since I am not officially done with installing all the battens.

I changed the spacing so therefore, will need to run out and get some more. More wood, more cutting, and more painting... this project is never ending....

My husband asked me the other day whether or not I regretted taking on this very intensive project. Now that I am so nearing the end, it is getting me excited about the next best part of the room, decorating!! However, will need to build a bed first.