(My dad and I made the jewelry stand. It spins. Nifty, yes?)
I wanted something with storage underneath and wherein one could not see cardboard boxes from the side. If it weren't for wanting storage, I would have sewn something.
The dresser is long-gone, but I saved the drawers. The front plate on the drawer is bigger than the sides, so it doesn't rest flat on the desk. Plus the front plate blocked me from storing anything underneath.
First I took off the handle....
Then I got a hammer. The side were just glued (I thought). At any rate, there weren't any of the those lovely dovetail joints, so I figured taking a hammer might work. I could always resort to the saw if it didn't.
It did work. But that stubborn face plate turned out to be what was keeping the whole thing together.
My husband has come downstairs after talking with his parents in Germany. We decide to reinforce the two places where the sides join the back.
First we had some staples to remove:
I convinced him that if he shows me how to properly use the hammer, he won't have to keep nailing things for me for the rest of my life!
(I am not wearing the safety glasses for fear of lawsuits. I am wearing them because I once interviewed an eye doctor for a freelance assignment and he told me that not a week goes by without him removing something from someone's eye that shouldn't have been there IF they'd worn safety glasses.)
Next, we cut a thin piece of wood from the scrap-wood-to-burn pile (thanks, Dad!) and glued it across the front of the side where the front plate had been. This is me being excited about using a miter box:
We nailed the piece down so it wouldn't float away on the glue. (This was Handsome's idea. It wouldn't have occurred to me.)
Some more glue, and then clamps.
Making the swinging front panel...
Apparently most folks who work with wood and tools have this
glorious thing I call A Miscellaneous Bits Box. It is full of screws, nails, random bits of plastic left over
from assembly projects, and, happily for me, a hinge. (Like the good geocacher that I am, I added an object before I
took one: the drawer pull that I had removed from the original drawer.) So that was the source of the hinge, which
must have come from somewhere originally, but my beloved couldn't remember
where.
The wood for the front was scrap wood from my father's
workshop. I think it was a cabinet door
gone horribly wrong. So there’s one
piece of quality wood (probably oak) amid the pine and pressboard.
We used a router to soften up the edges.
Then we sanded it using an orbital sander and two increasingly
fine types of sandpaper.
We put the hinge on, which involved a good deal of measuring
and hesitation on my part. (It was
another power tool, though, which I really love using!) We discover to that dad's Miscellaneous Bits
Box unfortunately did not have screws that were flat and brassy, so before that
we used will probably get swapped out after my next trip to the hardware
store. For one thing, they stick up so
much that the door doesn't open as far as I would like, although it's plenty
far enough to be workable. Dad also
pointed out that two hinges would have worked much better than one cheap
one. Since he likes to work with oak
and mahogany while my idea of a successful project is one where I don't have to
buy anything, I didn't say anything. He
is right, of course, and I probably would switch out the hinges if this was the
drawer I was going to access all the time.
We discovered that because of the sides of the drawer being
higher than the piece of wood to which the hinge was fixed the door would not
open as far as I had wanted. Dad got
out a utility knife and whittled down the soft pine a little bit to help with
this problem.
Now that we are done, I'm really thrilled with it. Of course, the fun part is yet to come:
Decorating! (Update: click here for decorating!)
~~~~~~~~
If you're thinking about doing this here are some tips.
1. Check to see if
your drawer has dovetail joints. If it
does, you aren't going to be able to hammer the front panel
off. You will have to use a saw
instead. The good news, however, is
that you are dealing with sturdy, high-quality furniture.
2. Check the bottom
of the drawer. Is its sturdy
enough? Granted, this depends on what
you are going to put on top of that, but the bottom of my drawer was the only
part of the whole affair that wasn't actually solid wood. It wouldn't hold much more than I have on it
now.
3. Consider how far
you want the drawer to open before you pick your hinge.
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