Built-In Dresser

It's been several years now since this photo was taken, but it sure doesn't seem like it.  This is a much younger Lyric playing with his play tools.  When we originally built the stairs to the attic we recognized that there would be a nice little usable space under them accessible from Lyric's bedroom.  Our idea was to have a little book nook complete with an overhead reading light.

That's just what it was for quite a while, albeit an unfinished one, but recently we decided to reinvent the space.  The original room was the largest in the entire house at 13' x 16' so we didn't feel bad about stealing some space from it to put in the staircase and a hallway to the bedrooms.  However, we are also enclosing an HVAC system into a closet in this room.  That system will service the second and third floors.  Even after we steal this additional space, it still leaves the room at roughly 10'x12', so it is still a generous bedroom size.  But, we thought we'd use that extra bit to its fullest potential with the next owners in mind.

So, we pulled out the light, disconnected and terminated the wiring within the junction box, roughed in some heavy duty drawer slides using 2x4 lumber and started putting together drawers and a drawer face.

I used some drawer facing boards that I got for free on Craigslist years ago.  Youth Of The Ozarks (YOTO) Thrift Store had been given a container-full of brand new cabinet scratch and dent stuff and mis-sized doors that they knew they couldn't sell so they were giving it all away for free.  Jacob and I spent a good hour filling the 8-foot bed of my truck with perfectly good material.  There were several other people there, as well, filling their trucks, vans, and cars to the brim.  The container was unloaded and cleaned out in no time.

I made the top three drawers by attaching two desk drawers together side by side.  There was a nice solid wood desk at work that was unwanted.  If no one wanted it, the manufacturing engineers were going to destroy it and toss it in the dumpster.  Of course, I wanted it.  And, they were almost perfect for the space.  The bottom three drawers were built from high-grade finished cabinet plywood from the truckload I mentioned earlier.

All in all, we only paid a few dollars for this built-in dresser.  We bought the pulls back in 2008 for 50 cents each at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore.  I bought the screws and wood glue I used at some point.  But, the rest was all free.  I love the way that it turned out.  And, it's a ton of storage.  These drawers are 32" wide and 33" long.  I love creative and practical use of space.

Posted in: Before & After,Craigslist,DIY,home renovation