Dresser Transformation

Just before Jonathan was born, which is now almost seven years ago (holy cripes) my mother gave us a dresser for his nursery. It was one of those dressers with the fake wood and the bright gold handles. It worked great for us and for almost six years was in pretty good condition. Last year we noticed that the sides of the dresser were starting to bow a bit... so the drawers wouldn't fit anymore, they just fell to the drawer below. I present exhibit A:

Do you see that top drawer? The sides have bowed so it doesn't fit the tracks anymore.  So you know what?  I'm going to show those tracks who's boss.

I had the hubster take those fickle tracks right off.  He insulted them as he went, 'cause they offended his family.

The basic idea that I had was to take every drawer out, except for the bottom one which had not seceded from the dresser union like his brethren.  I thought I would put a tension rod at the top to hang clothes from.  When I got to the hardware store, I found a better option:

They had wooden rods and sockets, which are much prettier than a metal or plastic rod.  And it's sold by the foot so it was cheaper than a tension rod, too.

I primed and painted the whole thing, inside and out.  That took the longest to do because as anyone who's ever had one of these dressers can agree, paint does not stick easily to it.  I had Dave sand it down and then put two coats of primer and three coats of paint on it.  Oh, and it was amazing:  I didn't use a tarp under the dresser when I painted and not a drop of paint hit the ground.  I think I know why though: I was watching the Harry Potter movies while painting and the magic seeped out of the screen and onto my project. Wingardum leviosa.

I didn't take pictures of the priming and painting... do you really need them?  If you do, please close your eyes and picture a very thin and graceful woman with gorgeous hair and perfect skin, who does not have a mouthful of leftover Christmas candy in her mouth, ever-so-cooly priming and painting with the ease and skill of a paid professional.  'Cause that's pretty much how it went.  In my head.

I found a cute drawer pull at Lowe's and put it on...

Added some not-girly fabric to the back and added a piece of wood just above the bottom drawer...

And like magic, that falling-apart dresser became a useful and cute piece of furniture.  I have the kids' clothes for the week, hung on the rod and socks go in the drawer.  We still have a large dresser for clothes, but since it was getting stuffed with both boys' clothes in it, this is a perfect solution.

Now I'm going to brew up some polyjuice potion and become a housecat for the day. Meow. Linking up at...