DIY Dresser Project

I love a good home project.  Unfortunately, I haven't done one in quite a while.  Warm weather is ideal, because when you have to spend a fair amount of time in the garage, it's preferable not to freeze to death.  And since last summer I had a newborn, the timing wasn't right to get anything major done.  About a month ago, we finally bought a king-size bed, which I have been wishing for for ages.  And since we got all new bedding, I decided the time was right to finally re-do our bedroom furniture.

Our dressers and nightstand were given to us as newlyweds.  And we were thrilled to have something, anything, to put our clothes in!  Our meager student budget didn't allow for new bedroom furniture!  But even when we received them eight years ago, they were a bit outdated.  I have so been wanting to switch these up for a long time!

Before:

Honey oak finish with broken, missing, and otherwise dated knobs.

After:

Black finish with glass knobs.

I totally forgot to take before photos of Adam's dresser and nightstand, but you get the idea.  They were pretty much identical to the before photo of my dresser.

After:

I pretty much only buy hardware on Amazon, because it's so expensive to buy in a home improvement store.  These drawer knobs were no exception.  In my mind, I had a vision of a really cool vintage round, glass knob.  The ones I wanted were $6 a pop at Home Depot.  I was able to get these ones off Amazon for $28 for all 20, with shipping included.  And since I had 2 free $10 Amazon gift cards, I only paid $8 bucks TOTAL out of pocket.
But when they showed up, I was disappointed.  They were not at all what I had in mind.  They were small, for one thing.  And the real kicker was that they were a round diamond-cut glass knob.  Not the vision I had for this furniture at all.
But I drilled them in, just to see how they looked.  And you know, even though it's not quite what I pictured, it was ok.  I was still too cheap to pay $120 just for hardware.  So we went with it.  I was worried Adam would think they were too feminine, but he liked them.  Or at least he said he liked them so I wouldm't spend more money on replacements.  Ha, ha!

This side table we actually found with a "free" sign on it in someone's driveway a couple years back.  I had Adam pull over immediately and load it into the back of the Santa Fe.  I forgot to take a "before" picture of it, too, but it was the same honey oak color as the other furniture.

After:

And here's a picture of the new bed, just to get a feel for the flow of the whole room.

Actually the thing that I felt the most accomplished about in this whole project was fixing the broken tracks on the bottom of three of the drawers.  I thought I would maybe delegate that to Adam, but it turns out I could do it.  I have a decidedly un-feminie love of having a drill in hand!

Cost breakdown:  I paid about $40 for paint and supplies and $8 for the hardware.  So a total bedroom makeover for about $50!

Also, this project inspired my next one:  master bath reno!  I have enough black paint leftover from the dressers to paint the cabinets, and tons of extra brushes and rollers.  When I madeover the kitchen three years ago, I ordered cabinet hardware in bulk, and I have the EXACT number of pulls leftover from that project to use in the master bath.  So I can re-do the bathroom for only the cost of new hinges for the doors, probably about $10.  Stay tuned!