The Art of Living Positive: Tall Dresser Converted To Bookshelf

Since we moved into our new home, my daughters mattresses have been on the floor. They went from sharing a room to getting their own rooms. They shared furniture in the old house.

My husband and I kept telling each other that we really needed to get their rooms situated. Once again, law of attraction came to play.

The weekend it all started

I received a text from my friend saying they were re doing their daughters room and asking if I wanted her bed. If not, they were going to donate it! I remembered loving her daughter's bed. It was very cute and perfect for my 4 year old. So of course I said yes!

Isn't it cute!? I traded the nightstand we had and she gave me the matching nightstand for this bed. My daughter was so excited we had to go out and get a bedspread. The Tinker Bell bedspread was $9.95 at Target! The bed is a little high so she has her Ikea step stool. (I love Ikea!) The green cords on the wall are from flower lights from Ikea as well. It's hard to get a picture of it all from that corner.

What about me?

Well, my 10 year old daughter insisted she wanted to keep her mattress on the floor but when she saw her little sister's bed, she decided she wanted a "normal" bed. Yes!

My sister and mother in law are moving and were giving away all of their furniture, give or take a few pieces. She asked me if I wanted her old furniture for my 10 year old. I said yes! The only thing is, there's no bed. It's a couple dressers and a desk with hutch. We decided on a platform bed, since her room is small and the window is kind of in an odd space so there really isn't room for fitting a nice big bed frame (I was wanting a canopy type bed for her). Jason will be making her bed in the near future. For now, we needed to get all her books off the floor and onto a bookshelf.

Well, we got 2 dressers from Jason's sister. One was a tall one and one was a long one. She didn't need 2 dressers so we decided to make the tall dresser a bookshelf.

The Weekend Project

My husband is sort of a neat freak. Well, borderline OCD! I wanted to make the tall dresser an open bookshelf but he wanted any clutter hidden. Books are not clutter in my eyes, but oh well. I usually let him get his way, so he got to work. I wish I would've gotten more pictures of the process. Sorry.

First, he cut the sides off of the drawers and then glued the drawer faces together and put them together with a piece of wood and some metal bracket things. (I don't know the terminology and he's not here right now for me to ask him). He then took out the wood pieces in the dresser where the drawers slide in. He used the bottoms of the drawers to make the shelves flush. In the above picture he is using wood glue to lay down wood pieces so that when he lays the drawer shelf down it will be flush. The bottom shelf is done and he put big pieces of concrete on it to put pressure on the shelf to dry.

Above, he is putting a drawer bottom over the wood pieces to make the shelf flush.

He used some clamps to hold it down while it dries.

Since he's never done this before, he feels it is a little sloppy but I love it. You can see the wood down the middle of the door and the metal pieces that keep each drawer face together. He had to mess with the hinges to make the door fit as good as possible. He spray painted the inside white.

The finished product. His job was done. I noticed when it was done that he had put the top drawer as the 3rd drawer though. He was so disappointed. I told him it's not really noticeable, but I guess everyone knows now! Haha

Here is an angled view.

Now it was my turn to do some magic. Well, my daughter LOVES pink. I mean really loves pink. She wanted her walls painted pink but since we are renting I said I didn't want to do that and promised her pink furniture. I really wanted to use Annie Sloan Chalk Paint. We went to a store in Old Town Temecula called Vintage Begonia that carries her paint. Lucky for me because not a lot of stores carry her paint. You can check them out on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/vintagebegonia

The pink that Annie Sloan has is soft and beautiful, but my daughter didn't like it. Well, she was looking for a more vibrant pink! The color is Antoinette. Click on the name to go to Annie Sloan's website. Below is the color swatch of Antoinette and a nightstand painted with Antoinette from her website.

So we went to Sherwin Williams and let my daughter pick a color. Bold, I know. She chose Vivacious Pink below.

My husband was taken aback by it's brightness but I told him it's her room, you don't have to live in there. :)

I started my sanding and prepping, which wasn't much.

Since my daughter really loved the brighter pink I started with that first. I took the handles off and painted the whole dresser Vivacious Pink.

Excuse the ugly couches in the background. Those will be covered at some point.

When I first got done with the pink, I thought it was a little too bold. I had some Annie Sloan Clear Wax and decided to mix the Antoinette with it to make it a Antoinette wax. It gave it a whimsical look and my husband immediately loved it!

Below is a closer look at the wax on top of the dresser.

I then painted the handle with the Annie Sloan Chalk Paint in Antoinette and brushed over the top with the Vivacious Pink so that it hit the edges of the handle.