Cottage Dresser Created From Entertainment Unit

Laurie
by Laurie
7 Materials
I inherited this oak entertainment unit from my neighbour's garage sale a few years ago. It is solid oak and I thought I could use it at my cottage, which is damp in winter, so plywood and fibreboard products swell and drawers stick. However, my cottage tv was too large for it and I already had a tv stand. As I didn't have a suitable vehicle to transport it at the time and had no space as there were other renovation priorities, it was temporarily stored in my garage and used for storage.
The original unit minus hardware
This year, I made it a priority to get a dresser for the main bedroom. As you know, solid wood products are very expensive these days, so I decided to repurpose the entertainment unit. I painted it white inside and added a middle plywood shelf, trimmed with iron-on white vinyl trim on the outward cut edge.
Two coats of Behr white paint
Next I lightly sanded the outside, including the doors, and then painted the outside with two coats of a paint and primer in one, Behr Marquee English Hollyhock blue (sort of an antique colour which suits my 85 year old cottage). All of this was done in my garage. Then it was time to transport to the cottage before re-assembly. It fit in my SUVs with room to spare!
Assembled dresser with new hardware
Next I replaced the old hardware which had rusted and added flowered blue shelf paper to the shelves. By sheer luck, it was almost a perfect match! As I didn't have enough blue to also line the drawer, I used white drawer liner for it.
Transformation complete!
Although there are shelves instead of drawers, they are far enough apart to permit easy access and I won't have any drawers stuck in the spring! I put bed linen for the room in the drawer with a dryer sheet to keep them fresh.
Suggested materials:
  • Interior White paint (Behrs) - had   (Home Depot)
  • Plywood - had- generously recut for free   (Home Depot)
  • White vinyl plywood trim - had   (Home Depot)
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