From Broken Dresser, to New Console Table

Is it just me or do "they just don't make it like they used to"?  I think it's the latter.

I bought this dresser brand new from a large furniture store for my son's room.  It worked out great for all of two weeks.

Broken track.  This is when you open your drawer and it falls out.  So frustrating.  I have my husband's childhood dresser and have no problems with it.  Manufacturers need to quit pumping out crap.  Okay, I'm over it.

So I needed to do one of two things.  I could replace it or re-purpose it.  Well, re-purposing is a lot cheaper and I love having things in my home that I can say, "I did that!"  So what did I do?

We really needed to have a console table in our Master Bedroom.  Something that could house our components and give us additional storage.  I wanted an open shelf on top and 4 drawers below.  Problem - two of my bottom drawers were broken and my top drawers were smaller than the bottom drawers.  With two drawer tracks broken, I knew what to do.

I took my top drawers and moved them down.  They fit in the same space, but the drawer front wouldn't cover the gap.

So, we removed the fronts from the broken drawers and attached them to the smaller drawers.

Because the top drawers had knob instead of handles, we needed to drill through the handle holes into the drawer.

Now you have a drawer that, although smaller than the original, covers the gap and looks like it was always that way.

Now to make the top shelf.

First we removed the track and drawer stops.

Drill some holes for your cords to go through.

Then you need to carefully measure the size of your soon to be shelf.  Note - you can't make one large self because you won't be able to get it in without taking the dresser apart.  So we went to Home Depot and had a piece of MDF cut down to size.  We choose MDF because it can withstand the weight and the heat of the components.

We had Home Depot make the general cuts, then we carefully measured and cut out our notches with a miter saw.  Thanks honey!

Then I stained the MDF with a matching stain.  Yes, you can stain fiberboard.  Warning - MDF soaks up stain like crazy, so make sure you put on light coats so you won't waste your stain.

Then we took out the drawers so that we could fit the new shelf in.  We got them in place...and they were PERFECT!  We put the drawers back in, and voila...

Before

 

After

 

Now we just have to wait until Christmas for our new tv.  Bummer!