DIY: Use Old Furniture in New Ways

A few months ago, my family moved into a new house. We new we'd need a new dresser for a new baby on the way. In an effort to save money, I noted a dresser by the garbage in our small condo-community. It appeared to be in excellent condition from where I stood, despite appearing to be made of pressed wood. I quickly asked my spouse to see about salvaging it, and so he did.

On further inspection, we noted that all the drawer faces were detached from the rest of the drawers. We had contemplated fixing the dresser, but time and resources left that project incomplete. Our modestly sized home was in dire need of space, and in wondering what it would take to find shelving, my spouse realized how easy it would be to convert the drawers into wall shelves.

You can salvage most of any type of furniture for a number of purposes, but for the sake of turning it into shelving, here's what he did.

1. Remove all of the hardware from the drawers and save it for other projects.
2. Remove all of the drawers and remove the front of them from the rest of the drawers using a hammer or some sort of pry tool.
3. Paint the bottoms of the shelves if you desire.
4. Install shelving brackets anywhere you want them (using a stud finder helps).
5. Put your drawer faces on them and you're done!

As an added bonus, you might be able to remove the top of the dresser to make a larger shelf, or to turn it into the top of a coffee table. We sawed it vertically to create two slender strips of finished wood with which we could turn into two shelves.

For another way to save money, check your local Habitat ReStore for shelving brackets. Thrift stores and yard sales are a good place to look for these types of items. Rather then spending money on brand new shelving brackets, first look in those types of places. Also, you might have other items from other old furniture that might work.

Using old furniture in new ways is a great way to save money, but it also reduces the amount of land we use for land fills. My grandfather had an old floor model television that stopped working. He gutted the television set out of the surrounding wood, gave the television away, and turned the rest of it into a very nice T.V. stand. He refinished the surfaces, and added wheels to the bottom. No one would even know that it was once an old fashioned television set.

Before you put something onto the curb, or the next time you see some furniture on the curb, consider how you can use that item for something you might already need. An old bookshelf might be turned into a child's desk, or an old desk might be able to be reformed into a bookshelf. A dresser can become an entertainment center, and of course, its drawers might become shelves.