Dresser to Desk...really?

Hey! Hope you all had a great weekend! I couldn’t ask for better weather for our spring street fair on Saturday! So, I’m thanking the universe right now :) but of course it didn’t last long. I’m looking out my window right now to rain and gloom. Oh well, at least my flowers are getting watered!

So, I mentioned that I just finished my mom's office last weekend. I think it turned out beautiful (of course I’m biased though) but one of the most show stopping pieces in it came from this:

Yep. I put a dresser in her office. It’s a dresser from Broyhill made in the 70s. Personally, I'm stunned that this dresser has kept up in decent condition for that long! It did have its bumps and bruises though and a few broken drawers. It was headed to the thrift store when I came in to do her office. I knew I could use it somehow and in someway so I had her keep it. And with a little careful thought and planning, it didn’t stay a dresser for long:

Can you believe that’s the same thing?! I still can’t and I made it!

Okay, so here’s the process. Of course, in order to make it a desk, I needed to get rid of some drawers. So, I pulled them all out. I knew I wanted to keep the left column of drawers. So, with my jigsaw I took out the framing of the other two columns.

Then, with the three drawers that were going to be kept, I pried off the handles with a hammer and then took my Dremel and cut off the staples that connected the two and of course sanded it:

After painting the base I attached some particle board to the top of the dresser. I countersunk some screws in from the top and into the frame of the dresser below it and filled the wholes with wood filler.

I then added some spindles to the two ends of the overhanging board to better the balance the 'desk'.

Next, I added some molding and baseboards.

Painted the piece. Then took some sandpaper and distressed it a little bit so it wasn't so stark white. I then rubbed some dark walnut stain on the distressed places.

To finish up, I put two coats of polycrylic to the whole thing.

Okay, so all of that made the outside look fantastic! But what about where I took the framing out???

Easy. I took some foam board and measured it to size to fit each side. Covered them with fabric, and stapled the little buggers in place.

Just for finishing touches, I added some corbels to the bottom of the overhang….

And put some spiffy new pulls on the drawers. (don't mind the unpainted end of the molding...that was fixed. lol)

Total cost for the desk was roughly $50! It would have been a lot cheaper without the corbels :) But had to do it! lol.

Here’s a before and after::

This took a lot of patience, but it was totally worth it in the long run!