Turning a Dresser into a TV Stand

We have a guest post from my friend Abby, who has a handmade crochet business called GouldThreads. You can check her out via my sidebar or her links below! She's sharing how she and her husband turned an old dresser into a TV stand.
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Hi Monkey See Monkey Do fans, I'm Abby from GouldThreads.  I blog about my crochet (and some knit) creations but also enjoy other crafts and DIY projects.  Today I'm here to show you how to turn an old dresser into a new TV stand! 

Craft Storage Shelf from a Drawer

I needed a shelf for my craft supplies. Want to see how I turned an old drawer into a shelf?

Dresser Revamp

What a change! It goes well with the rest of our bedroom.

My super-wonderful husband and I redid this dresser. It was devastatingly 1960’s-esque.

Here is the before:

My mom said it was the very first piece of furniture she bought; she thinks she paid $50 for it back in the 1970's. She & my dad upgraded their bedroom furniture and my husband and I got a free dresser.

I've always disliked it.

These were the handles.

These were the legs.

My husband made new legs for it. After attaching them, we primed it.

We stripped and restained the drawers, filled the holes where the old hardware had been, and painted the outside. (The top was plastic and not wood, so we couldn’t restain it.)

I love it now.

Also, my super-amazing husband parked his car in the driveway instead of the garage for the entire month of December so we could work on the dresser in the warmth of the garage. He also stored all of his clothing in a plastic tub because of the lack of drawer space in our room while the revap was taking place.

He's a keeper.

Rocking Chair Reupholstery Part II

So far, the chair looks good from the front.

But the back is not finished.

Finishing things up proved to be the most challenging part so far.

The first challenge was that I was using a manual staple gun and not getting the staples all the way into the wood. I debated buying a 'real' upholstery staple gun (pneumatic or electric) but that would cost $150+ dollars. Not very frugal!

So I put off finishing the chair for about 5 months!

My dad suggested trying to hammer in tacks to the wood. I tried that and it worked well! It took forever, but it was worth saving money.

The first thing I hammered in was the trim for the back.

The next thing I used was ply-grip. Here's a great how-to video about ply-grip. Ply-grip is the metal stuff at the edge that allows you to finish an upholstery project without any staples showing and with all raw edges tucked in.

You need ply-grip on three sides. On the fourth side, you can tack (or staple) the fabric down.

This is how you'd tack it down:

Then the opposite side should get tucked into the ply-grip. I waited until the very end to use the mallet to bump it into place (see the video, I can't quite get the point across in pictures).

This is what the back looks like after pulling all four sides tight under the ply-grip:

Closer view of the back:

This is the bottom. I used the same technique to attach the solid navy fabric to the bottom. However, I did have to fold it a bit around the legs of the chair so it isn't as tight.

Painting a Bookcase: Before & After

I rescued these two small bookcases from my parents' barn. I wanted to use one in our little boy's room. I chose the one on the right for this purpose.

I may make the left one into an art cabinet...but I have to figure out how to remove the bottom part. It was apparently a radiator cover.

Here is the 'after' picture of my bookcase.
You can't tell very well, but I did a glazing technique.
Here are the steps:

1. Prime the whole thing with plain old interior wall primer.

2. Paint the whole thing with interior semi-gloss paint.

3. After it dried, for the glaze, I used a gel stain meant for finishing wood, let it sit on the paint for a few minutes, and then wiped it off. It gave it a grainy look. I don't love it, but it is more interesting than plain off-white.

4. To do the blue back of the shelves, I used a satin finish spray paint. I masked the sides really well, shown below:

I applied quite a few coats of spray paint to cover the white and the glaze I'd already done. I really like it and can't wait for our house to be finished so we can use it! By the way, the blue shelf backs were a last-minute decision. I wouldn't have painted and glazed them if I thought I was going to spray paint them.

Update: See this post of my toddler's room to see this shelf in action! Love it.

Another China Hutch Idea...

Remember how I garbage-picked my china hutch? And then I refinished it? Here's another idea for the same type of furniture. My dad (who loves wood's natural grain) would hate this idea...but it looks pretty neato:

Game Room Hutch

Garbage Picking

We walk through our neighborhood nearly every night from April-October (if it isn't raining). There are several occasions we have seen something we could use in someone's trash pile.

~Computer chair. Perfectly good condition.
~China hutch* (I get SO many compliments on it!)~a tarp. We needed one for our little guy's sandbox. It was enormous and my husband just cleaned it and cut it down into smaller pieces.
~a giant abacus. my husband loves math (engineers!) and so our toddler can learn to count. and learn his colors. I was told this educational toy would normally cost $99.

*The china hutch smelled like smoke. We tried everything to get the scent out (baking soda, vinegar, coffee, Murphy's Oil Soap) and finally had to strip it and refinish it. It looks great, though! And it was completely FREE. I would not have anywhere to keep my grandmother's china if we had not been willing to ask the homeowners if they really intended to throw it away and then lug it home! It is huge so it was a giant task to lug it home. Lucky for me, I found it before the summer I was pregnant so I could not only help my husband drag it home but also use the strong chemicals necessary to strip and refinish it.