Turn a dresser into a tv stand: the easy way

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So as I mentioned HERE I have been selling some stuff online. It's awesome to be making a little bit of money, however... when you join online buy sell trade groups your Facebook page is bombarded with ads from the over 2000 people also on that group. I've learned to weed through them and ignore them, for the most part. Not gonna lie, I have bought a few small items as well. Nothing to grand, a small wood filing cabinet and some pot lid racks. Yes, I did. I bought those bad boys in hopes of organizing mt kitchen cabinets. We shall see.

The Find

The other morning I was browsing when I came across a post that went something like this. "Free dresser. Needs major work" that was it. That was the whole ad. The vultures went to town, can you send a pic, how big, what color... on and on. I didn't bother with the comments, and went straight to her inbox. I said," I'll take it, can pick up asap." She messaged back with her address and 20 mins later I had this cardboard monstrosity in my drive way.

I seriously had no idea what to expect as I was driving up to get it. All I knew it was in fact a dresser that needed major work lol. I knew I could get rid of it if it was beyond repair. Let me tell you it was almost to that point. This piece was as particle board as they come. Like cardboard seriously. I stared at it for a while trying to decide what to do with it. Originally I wanted a dresser for one of the kids rooms but no body wanted it in their room. Go figure.  I decided I would try to do a dresser tv stand, like so many others I've seen on Pinterest.

The Repairs

The first thing and probably the most important was repairing as much as I could. Like I said it was practically cardboard so lots of gluing and clamping just to keep the thing from falling apart. I had to add a divider in between the drawers and move around all of the drawer slides. Since I would be removing the top drawers I could pick and choose the best ones and toss the others.

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The paint

Once I had the repairs done, it was time to prime and paint! I wanted to do a wood top however, I didn't want to spend a lot of money on this tv stand. The top to the dresser was bad, I mean bubbly and water damaged particle board. I didn't want to give up on a "wood" top, so I decided to fake it. I sanded it down until I had cardboard flying. I started with a brown base coat, and started in on top with some black and lighter browns. I plopped the colors on and used a brush to streak the colors. Nothing to fancy or technical to say the least. This is how it looked at that point. Don't worry the poly shades will help the final look of the top!

When that dried completely I went over that with a super dark Poly Shades.  This stuff is great for the particle board paint projects, because it has the stain and poly all in one.  I've used this stuff on other painted projects to kinda distress the paint and it worked awesome!

Then I primed and painted the entire thing. Two coats of primer, I recommend Kilz brand. I've been using this brand for a while now and wouldn't do a paint project with out it.  and I started with the first coat of paint before assembling the rest. While I was letting it dry I started on the interior shelf. I built this separate and installed it a little later down the line.

the build

I did take out the front dividers to the dresser. I wanted the sound bar to be able to go in this area. I know a lot of people remove the back and put in the shelf from behind but I went in from the front. This was measured so close I had to sand down the sides to get it to slide in. You can see in the photo that this is only the bottom and back of the media shelf. The interior sides were the very thin drawer bottoms from the top drawers I installed these first.

The picture below shows the shelf installed. It is sitting on large L brackets in the back and smaller ones in the front. Like these.  The trim was from the original dresser just moved up a bit to be even with the new media shelf. Putty and paint! I filled every little crack with putty for a nice smooth interior look. "Putty and paint make a carpenter what he ain't!" You can also see how the top is coming along.

Once I had it all put together I gave it a few more coats, letting it dry completely and using a fine sand paper in between coats.

The final  result

I love the result, and it will work anywhere really. For now it's sitting pretty in the living room. I have another little project I'm working on. I'll share soon!

Until then!
xoxo

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