I take a $30 old dresser I bought on Facebook Marketplace and flip it into a creative studio apothecary cabinet. for my home office!
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2021 is the year for organizing my life! After I built the shelves in the closet of my home office, I knew I needed a cabinet, dresser, or someway to organize all of my craft materials and smaller pieces that are harder to track in the wood shop. I wanted something that had the space of an actual dresser – with deeper, wider drawers – and I had seen people hacking Ikea furniture to look like apothecary dressers and loved the look of the faux apothecary cabinet drawer front. Instead of going out and buying an Ikea piece of furniture, I decided to find a stable piece of furniture locally and flip into a faux apothecary cabinet (and maybe add some extra special storage).
This project felt rejevunating and makes me excited and hopeful for the year to come. Check out how I turned to this dresser into a show-stopping piece of of furniture!
YouTube Video
Tools & Materials
Lumber
- Sheet of ¾ x 4x 8 Plywood
- Sheet of ½x 4x 8 plywood
Supplies
- Side Mount Drawer slides
- Bottom mount drawer slides
- 1 ¼” Kreg Pocket Screws
- 1” Nails
- Apothecary Drawer pulls
- Cabinet Hinges
- Sherwin Williams’ Handsome Plum
- Caulk (optional)
Tools
- Nail Gun
- Power Drill
- Miter Saw
- Table Saw
- Kreg Rip Cut
- Sander
- Sanding Block
- Kreg Jig Pocket Hole System
- Caulk Gun (optional)
Get more info on my favorite beginner tools in my blog post, ‘5 Woodworking Tools You Need For Your Beginner Workshop’
Steps
Install new drawer slides
I picked up these drawer slides from Amazon and they were great and super easy to install. I felt really nervous about installing drawers, but it was honestly way easier than I thought it’d be. (Especially since I installed and removed these drawers like 3 times – side note: always plan your assembly so you don’t have to install drawers 3 times)
I made sure to install the slides at least ½ inch in from the front of the dresser, since I want the drawer fronts to sit flush to the front of the dresser.
Build & Install new drawer boxes
These new drawer boxes themselves should be 1 inch (the width of each drawer slide if ½ inch) shorter than the width of the drawer opening. Using bottom spacers, I attached the drawers to the new slides.
Drawer fronts
I used ½ inch plywood and ran the drawer fronts along the top of the table saw. I set the blade to be about ⅛ inch in order to create the appearance that 1 drawer front would actually appear to be 3 separate drawers.
Then I created a template/ hack to pre-drill holes for the hardware.
Add a cubby to the top of the Cabinet
I cut ¾ inch plywood to create a 2 pocket cubby on the top of the dresser. Then I cut 2 large rectangular trays to go in each cubby. After that, I attached the trays with bottom mount drawer slides to allow for extra storage and better use of the cubby space.
Sand
I sanded everything with 180 grit and then 220 grit sandpaper before priming and painting.
Prime & Paint
Once everything was installed and I was sure things were the right size, I unassembled everything and began to prime and paint.
I used 2 coats of primer, sanding with a 220 grit sanding block between coats. I then used 2 coats of Sherwin William’s Handsome Plum paint, also using a 220 sanding block between coats.
Attach decorative hardware
I attached new apothecary style drawer pulls to the cabinet and voila!
I’m so excited for all of what 2021 has to bring! If you’re also excited, make sure you’re signed up for the Melanated Maker DIY newsletter so you know exactly when a new blog is coming and can stay up-to-date. Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Pinterest @MelanatedMakerDIY!