From trash to treasure

I've been busy working on redoing Emily's big girl room/new baby nursery. I've mentioned before that they will be sharing a room. Sharing a room means more furniture and storage options. I'll do another post more on that in another post. Emily's nursery isn't a big room and what's worst is it does not have a closet. Previous owners took out the closet and made her room an office would be my guess. There's a slot for the closet but no real closet. Long story short, I've been on the lookout for a dresser or armoire for Emily since her old dresser/changing table will be for the baby.

Since her room wasn't big I needed something tall and didn't take much space. I searched and searched and found a few options but weren't happy with the price and quality of the product that I would get. Prices were usually about $150-300 for laminate/particle board and upwards of $400+ for real wood. I said no thank you and searched craigslist. Last weekend, I spotted a free ad for a white dresser that looks like it would fit the space and perfect for our little Emily. It was also located a few blocks from my parents home. Surprisingly when I saw it in person, it didn't look too terrible. Its by far from perfect but its free. All it really needed was some TLC.

Here are some before pictures of the dresser I picked up for free on Craigslist. It was wobbly but my dad quickly reinforced it. It was made out of particle board/laminate but it was free. I really can't complain. Here it is sitting in Emily's room. I wiped it down and sanitized it with some wipes.

Here are close up pictures of some of the chips.  This is the top front of the dresser.

Side view with a small chip on top.

It also came with ugly wood knobs so I quickly removed them and went to Michaels and picked up some clear crystal knobs on clearance for $1.50 each. 

Here's the picture after I screwed the knobs on the dresser. I contemplated repainting the whole dresser but the paint wasn't bad, it just had some minor chips. 

I finally decided that repainting just the chipped parts in white would be good enough. I just used some left over white paint from my previous projects and dabbed over the chipped parts. Here is the dresser once dried. 

Here's a close up of the chip in front of the dresser. Its hardly noticeable IMO.  I also went to Ross and picked up a box and jewelry stand for a few dollars. The white box on top was just a shoe box covered in white contact paper.

Here's a side view of the dresser where there use to be a chip.

Here's the inside of the dresser. Its actually quite clean and sturdy. 

Finally, here's a teaser of what I've been working on. This is Emily's big girl bed. Its a toddler day bed with storage underneath and I made a simple wanna be head/bed bumper. More on her toddler bed another day. I've completed her bedding and am working on making a canopy so that will be another post.