It’s been awhile since I have done a good old diy project. The weather here has been beautiful and it has inspired me to dust off the saw and get busy. I’ve had some old drawers that I saved from a small dresser that had some water damage to it. I knew that one day they would make for a good project and today was the day! I decided to re-purpose the drawers and turn them into a small shelf for my front porch. Let me just say, that it turned out so cute!
Do you have an old dresser or drawers that have seen better days and you don’t know what to do with them? Re-purpose them and turn them into a unique drawer shelf. Let me show you just how easy it is.
How to make a Re-purposed Drawer Shelf
Supplies used:
- 1 piece of 1 x 3 wood ( 8ft. long )
- Wood screws
- Wood Glue
- Miter Saw
- Palm Sander
- Paint
- Scrapbook paper
- Mod Podge
- Palette Knife
- Peel and stick decal
Instructions:
Begin by cutting your wood down to 4 pieces at 2ft. in length. You can adjust your length to the size that you want. Mine was a little short, but I had to work with what I had. I think 3 ft. in length would be ideal.
Space your drawers out how you would like.
Next, line up 2 of the pieces of wood along the sides of the drawers and drill 2 holes into them. One on the top part of the drawer and one on the bottom part. Do the same to the other drawer. Add some wood glue to the wood pieces and drill your screws into the wood and the drawers to secure them.
Flip the piece around and repeat this same process on the other side.
How to paint your Re-purposed Drawer Shelf
This is the fun part! You can paint your re-purposed drawer shelf whatever colors that you like. I decided to give mine a little distressing technique. This is how I did it.
I wanted this piece to have a fun pop of color. The colors that I chose were a equal mixture of Waverly Chalk Paint in the colors Pool and Agave. I gave the whole shelf two coats of paint.
To distress it, I used a palette knife and Waverly Chalk Paint in the color Truffle. With a light hand, I took the palette knife and applied the paint in a scraping fashion in the areas that I wanted to look distressed. The palette knife technique works best when the wood is not completely smooth, as it will grab the highs and lows of the wood creating a really cool distressed and chippy look.
I used some Mod Podge to apply this beautiful floral scrapbook paper to line the inside of the drawers.
To finish it off, I used this peel and stick Bloom image that I found over at the Dollar Tree and applied it to the front of the drawer. It was perfect and tied it all together!
How to decorate your Re-purposed Drawer Shelf
There are many ways to use your shelf. You can use it as a craft shelf to store some of your craft supplies. Add some books to it and turn it into a small book shelf. It would also be cute to store your kids or grandkids coloring book and crayons. I used mine on my porch and added some cute decor to it. The possibilities are endless! How will you use yours? Drop a comment below and let me know.
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Happy Creating!
Nikki ❤️
This is stunning and now I’m on the hunt for an old chest 😂😂
Thank you so much! I hope you find one.😀
I think I might use contact paper inside the drawers or something that wouldn’t get ruined if it got wet I have a really small unprotected porch and a gazebo in the back
Contact paper would be perfect! I did apply another coat of Mod Podge over the top of the paper to seal it.