Our awesome DIY project

Jess and I have been in need of some sort of TV stand for when we move. The problem was that we were really picky. We needed something sturdy, and something that was tall enough that the boys wouldn't be able to get their grimy little fingers all over my TV. We were definitely on a budget and Jessica kept changing her mind about what exactly she wanted; Doors, no doors, armoire, no armoire, mounted, or just a big dresser. Fortunately-or maybe unfortunately, she caught the crafting bug and decided to find an old beat up dresser to fix up. Exhibit A: I found this dresser from the 1920's for $16 at Goodwill. as you can see, the middle drawer is broken, and there is a lot of damage to the left side of the bottom drawer.

Shown above. Despite its imperfections Jessica approved the dresser and was eager to tackle this new project. Namely, by making me do all the work.

I got my crew together and started sanding this rickety old dresser down. I had to do it all by hand since I didn't have an electric sander.

before and after.

This is after I'd sanded the whole thing down, tacked in new nails to stop all the wobbliness, and put wood glue in every joint. I filled in the drawer gash with wood glue and sanded it smooth.

Shown here

Here is when Jessica got...creative (to put it delicately). We painted the base coat of the dresser red.

notice that the gash is no longer visible. Yes, thank you, I know I'm quite skilled.

The next step got REALLY tricky. We used crackle paint and then did an orange top coat. We had to redo this step three times before we got it right. When we tried to paint it the first time it basically just melted off. It was too humid for the paint to dry so it just sloughed off and i had to sand it all down again, paint it red and try again...and again.



Here is the result:

And this is how it looks once I painted on the top coat of gloss. I have to admit that it turned out really fun. Jess and I were both pretty hesitant about the color choice, but we knew we didn't want to do something boring and mundane. We just went for it.

If you'll notice, these are the handles that came with the dresser. Jess opted to keep the originals instead of buying new knobs-which I appreciated since I didn't have to pay for them.

As much work as it was, I really had fun doing it. It was something that I looked forward to working on each night. It's always a good feeling to work and accomplish something, and it reminded me of watching my older brother and my grandpa working in Gramps' old workshop. Maybe it was some sort of 2ND son pride thing, but it felt good to do some carpentry the right way-and I especially loved that it was super cheap.

Look forward to seeing this in our new apartment in 2 weeks!