Thrifted Dresser Revival

After we moved into the new house I was looking for a dresser for Dan because the closet space isn’t huge. I knew I wanted something kind of modern, kind of scandinavian, but also affordable. Buying anything new that fit those descriptions seemed nearly impossible. I could get the first two, but nothing that fit my (real low) budget. So I decided to hit the thrift stores and see what I could find. I ended up getting this old dresser for $25 and promptly started refinishing it!

In the Before image I’ve already removed the old hardware that was just plain and dated, and I’d removed some of the drawers to start sanding. The door’s hinges broke off when the gal was wheeling the cabinet out to my car and she hit a pot hole, so that’s why the door is sitting on the ground, but replacement hinges were easy enough to find at the hardware store!

BEFORE

AFTER

I had some long legs from Pretty Pegs for a bench project that I never ended up doing, but I loved the idea of adding a bit of quirkiness to a dresser with the long legs. I used a skill saw to cut off the bottom on the two sides that served as the old legs in order to give it a straight bottom to attach the legs to, but other than that, the only power tool I really needed was a sander and a drill. And man did I do some sanding. So. Much. Sanding. I used a belt sander for most of it, then used an orbital sander for some parts, and had to do hand sanding in all the crevasses.

I decided to keep it unfinished because I liked the light, naked wood. I replaced the old dated drawer pulls with new ones, and then I added some shelves in the door space on the right because it previously held an odd slide-out hanging rod that didn’t seem practical for our purposes.

I picked up the drawer pulls from Home Depot and just made sure that they had the holes the same distance apart as the original ones so all I had to do was screw them right on, super easy update! And the Pretty Pegs legs came with brackets to attach the legs, so that was also a pretty easy update!

Since it’s relatively top heavy with the longer legs, I’m planning on attaching it to the wall with brackets, just so it doesn’t fall over with the drawers pulled out (or some crazy toddler decides it’s a good idea to climb up it).

All in all, the project took 2, maybe 2.5 days from start to finish and here’s the breakdown on the cost:
Thrifted Dresser: $24.99
Drawer Pulls: $32.40
Hinges: $2.78
Legs: (c/o Pretty Pegs) $75