Wednesday 22 February 2012

Who needs drawers when you can have shelves

The best thing about D.I.Y is creating something new out of something old and neglected. Changing something from what it should be into something that it never knew it could. Having an open mind is essential in winning the battle of the recreate. Back in the day when I was residing in Vancouver I moved into a house that needed curtains - it just so happened that the wall coverings for the window display at work were coming down and were headed righteously for the trash. I swooped in and salvaged these light purple, semi sparkly yards of over processed synthetic fabric from a shallow dumpster grave. I brought these babies home, sewed some loops at the top for the rod to slide through and added wide stripes of black house paint to the already ridged material with a busted up paint roller. Let dry and C'est Magnifique! They were the right length, they were the correct width and they even kept the alley lurkers from peering in at me while I watched Extreme Makeover Home Edition and wept in amazement at how they continued to change the lives of so many with overindulgences and a mega phone. 


That was over ten years ago and my skills have become slightly more broadened but it was still a pretty stoked feeling to know that I contributed to my house and didn't have to sacrifice my non-existent  pennies to do so. 


Since we're still working towards putting the finishing touches on our son's new room, there has been a lot of new additions being crafted. I really like this shelf that we did out of old dresser drawers. It's fun and since we already have a shelf type box for books, it didn't matter that the depth of the drawers weren't totally ideal for novels and the like. 


I managed to come across 4 old drawers that were being sold for $6 off the internet - they were perfect. I had an old dresser in the garage that's shape I wasn't totally sold on but kept as a "just in case" item. I am so glad I fought the husband's pleads to discard off for those extra few weeks because two of it's drawers were just what I needed. All together I had six drawers - 4 different styles and shapes. I organized them on the ground to find the shape that I was keen on and popped off the handles that weren't necessary. 



I gave all the drawers a light sand but kept the outsides natural/multiple colours to make it obvious of what they were in their past life. We made some small shims to help the drawers fit snug up against each other and to get a nice tight hold when we screwed them together. By screwing them together it made the drawers into one nice easy to handle shelf. Add in as many or as little screws as you want, totally your call. I gave the insides some white and got Hayden to paint on some designs of relevance to my child's currant fascinations. 



Because the back (old bottom) of the drawers were sunken in a bit, when attached to the wall there would have been a gap, making the shelf not fully flat and secure. We cut some small squares of wood and using wood glue adhered them to six spots around the back where we wanted to place the screws through to the wall. This made the whole unit nice and flat and virtually unmoveable. 




I added some of my son's wears strategically amongst the new shelves hoping that he has fallen out of love with each piece that fits to my taste. I find I try to hide my sadness every time he throws things on the floor or rearranges to his unseasoned liking but he's a kid and he's a rad kid who's just beginning his own lessons in the art of design and destruction.   

2 comments:

  1. I work for a company called DIYGarageShelf.com

    Normall I would continue plugging the company but I just wanted to say that that is a REALLY neat idea. It looks so craftsy! Awesome!

    ReplyDelete
  2. What's up, all the time i used to check blog posts here early in the break of day, since i enjoy to learn more and more.

    Also visit my weblog: Does raspberry ketones work

    ReplyDelete