Turning a Chest of Drawers Into a Vinyl Record Cabinet

Jen Burns
by Jen Burns
1 Material
I was asked by a customer to refinish and turn their grandfather's vintage chest of drawers into a storage piece for record albums.
They wanted something cool and similar to barrister or lawyer style bookcases. So after picking up the chest and checking the condition I got to work first stripping off the old damaged finish with Soy Gel Stripper.
Once I could see under the old dark finish, I could see how cool the original wood looked. It reminded me of an old jukebox, which was perfect for what we were going for.
I had to rebuild the frame, adding tracks for the new drawers to slide. Then I had to remove the drawer fronts and rebuild those into doors to lift up.
It took some time to plane the edges and get them flush to glue together.
Then the hinges for each had to be installed, leveled and adjusted.
Once the drawers were rebuilt and installed, the top door was installed. I used a few of my own record collection to test for clearance and storage.
After everything was finished on the build side, I did a glazing stain to even out the dark walnut color. It was then finished with several coats of polyurethane.
I kept the original wooden handles to use for the doors and the original wood tones. I think it turned out pretty cool
Suggested materials:
  • Drawer slides and Hinges   (D. Lawless Hardware)
Jen Burns
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