My First DIY: Dresser to Entertainment Center

For my very first DIY blog project, I decided to tackle the eye sore that is dearest to my heart. This baby....

This dresser was a gift from my mom for my first apartment in college back in 2006. I was into Shabby Chic at the time, so my mom painted it white, added the cute little flowery knobs and gave it to me as a "leaving the nest" present. As anyone who has ever lost a loved one knows, once she passed away, this little gem became priceless to me.

Many a conversation has been had about throwing this little dirty, disheveled mess out, but I would never in a million years dream of getting rid of it!  The sentimental value supersedes the fact that the middle drawer is chipped, and its in desperate need of a paint job, and its really too small to hold all of my clothes.

 

So, for the last few years, I've turned a blind eye to functionality and have used this dresser to store all of the clothes that I was too lazy to throw away. Makes sense, right?

 

Anyways, once we moved into our one bedroom, space became an issue, so this doubled as our TV stand. I finally decided on a whim to make it a true entertainment center, and thus, my first DIY project was born.

First, I gather my necessary tools:

Because I don't function without this...

 

A screwdriver, some wood filler and a sanding sponge (sandpaper would work fine)...

And my loveable pup Jack, who insisted on supervising...

 Then, I took the middle drawer out and removed the track to make room for a shelf to hold my DVD player and game console. 

Once the track came out, I filled all of the holes with wood filler and let it dry for about 15 minutes.

 

Once the wood filler dried, I sanded it down to ensure a smooth surface.

 

 

 

While I prepped the dresser, I was able to recruit my ever-so-eager boyfriend (can you tell how excited he was to help?) to take the knobs off the drawer.

 

And then I started painting. Look at the pretty blue color I chose! Its called "Tropical Lagoon."

 

 

If you do a project like this, don't let your boyfriend take cheesy pictures of you painting....

 

Jacky-Boy observing my handy work (after rubbing up against my black shirt)...

 

 

Look what I found while painting the drawers! My mom numbered the drawers during her renovation of this dresser years ago (she was so smart!). Finding this was pretty cool--it made me realize that I was sharing in the history of this piece of furniture with her (kind of sappy,  but I can't help it!).

 



 

After it was painted, I let it dry overnight outside and then put the pretty new knobs on. P.S. Don't be a dummy like me, and make sure you buy the correct number of knobs the first time around so that you don't need to make two Home Depot runs.

 

 

 

And then came the fun part--cutting a little hole in the back of the entertainment center for cords. I started using a very sharp crafting knife. If your dresser has thin particle board or cardboard backing, that will most likely work fine. If your dresser has an actual hardwood backing like mine, you will waste two hours in frustration-induced misery before you finally give up, go to Home Depot (for the third time) and buy a drill with a spade bit.

 

Note: At the time of this photo, I had patched the area surrounding the hole with wood filler. I went wood filler happy (in case you couldn't tell). Eventually, I sanded down and painted this hole, but I was so impressed with myself (or relieved it was over), I forgot to take a picture! 

 

 

After two days and about thirty bucks in materials, this was the end result.

 

P.S. The $30 was excluding the drill and spade bit that I bought in a moment of sheer frustration. I would suggest borrowing a drill and spade bit if you don't have one. I can' imagine what I'll ever use a spade bit for again, and now I have fifteen assorted shapes and sizes!

 

It gets Jacky Boy's stamp of approval. I think my mom would like it too...

 

This picture makes the entertainment center look much smaller than it really is. This is because I had to stand on my bed to get a full shot of it. One of the perks of living in a cramped one bedroom...

 

 

P.S. Look what I found when I was taking all of the clothes out of my dresser! Its my old jersey from when I used to go to my dad's football games as a toddler :) How's that for nostalgia?!

 

 





Developing Wings: My Ah Ha Moment

The other day, I was aimlessly googling inspirational quotes  (because--what else am I supposed to do with my free time?) and I came upon a quote that has stayed fresh in my mind ever since:

"We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down." - Kurt Vonnegut (author of Slaughterhouse-five)

Upon reading this quote, I was instantly struck with the painful realization that I'm not jumping off any hypothetical cliffs in my life, and I'm certainly not developing my methephorical wings.

My life, as hard as it is to admit, has become boring, normal--adult! (Gasp!)

When I was a little girl, my mom would introduce me by saying, "This is my daughter, Mallory. She's going to be an author someday!" I was such a creative child. In the second grade, I wrote a short story about a married couple named Stacy and Stew going through a nasty divorce   ( I'll credit that plot line to countless hours spent hiding behind the couch to watch 90210 and Melrose Place after bedtime).  In the sixth grade, I wrote my first "novel" about the adventures of a traveling musical family. In college, I spent my free time painting with oils and acrylics and scrap booking any and every picture I took.

And then something happened....I graduated college and realized that I was 30,000 in debt and unemployed. So I moved back home, got a job and have been grinding the stone ever since.

I took an assessment test in college and was the only member of my Business  Management class to get "artist" as their ideal career. So what did I do? I got into human resources....

Now I spend my days watching co-workers squirm at the sight of me, hiring, firing and doing other dirty work that human resources professionals love so much (that was sarcasm).

Recently, I pulled out my oil paints and a dusty canvas that had been sitting in the back of my closet, and sat down for what i thought would be a theraputic painting session.

Before, it flowed naturally. I didn't have to try to paint anything--it just happened. This time, however, I was two hours in, and all I had was a greenish/yellowish blob. The painters block was so foreign to me that I thought surely something was wrong with the paints. They must have gone bad. They must have run together when I wasn't looking. There was a Picasso in there somewhere, buried behind all the goop....

Truth was: I'd  lost it. Something so meaningful and easy to the teenage version of me was gone. And that's when I decided to make more of a conscious effort to get the creative part of me back.

I will paint! I will write! I will be creative--dammit! Even if it kills me! (Okay, maybe that's a little extreme. You won't find me jumping of any literal cliffs anytime soon...or ever).

But what you will see is one girl desperately seeking to grow a pair of her own wings. Hopefully my journey will inspire other desperate workaholics like me to follow suit!

Stay tuned for my first creative DIY project :)