I feel like I say this every month, but Holy Cow November flew by!
To end November with a bang I got together with a few fellow lovely DIY ladies for a fun upcycle collaboration challenge!
For this collaboration, I partnered with Tania from Created By A Gemini, Angela from Simply Beautiful By Angela, and Molly from Just A Little Creativity.
I turned a French Provincial Dresser into a nightstand for my furniture upcycle!
Challenge Guidelines
The challenge guidelines were simple. To upcycle an old piece of furniture.
This was my first time doing a collaboration challenge and I was super excited about it but also nervous.
Although I have upcycled a good amount of furniture pieces before I wasn’t sure what everyone else’s expectations were.
In the end, though I really enjoyed my first experience doing it. Everyone had really unique upcycled projects.
My favorite thing about any kind of any collaborative group event is discovering a new perspective.
You may look at a problem to solve, or a piece of furniture to upcycle and envision a hundred different ways to tackle it.
But ask the person next to you and they’ll come up with a hundred other different solutions that may never have occurred to you. Isn’t that beautiful?!
This challenge was the same way. We each had to upcycle a piece of furniture and each one of us did something completely different.
I decided to upcycle an old French Provincial dresser I’d bought years ago at an estate sale.
P.S Sorry about the quality of the before photos I couldn’t find anything better.
Over the years I’ve acquired several French Provincial pieces. As my home decor style has changed over the years the dresser really didn’t seem to work in my space quite right.
The yellowish color I now hated and I really disliked how tall it was. So the dresser sat either in storage or in a closet.
I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the dresser. So I thought to myself “What am I currently in need of furniture wise?”
AND
“Can I transform the dresser into the thing I need? Can it be made purposeful and save money at the same time?”
That’s when I decided my upcycling collab challenge would be a French Provincial Dresser makeover turned into a nightstand!
We didn’t have any side tables or nightstands in our bedroom.
I’m embarrassed to admit I’d been using a 5-gallon bucket. Placed on my side of the bed to put all my stuff onto.
I’m all about saving money as you guys know by now if you’ve visited the blog before. I have no problem admitting that I’m cheap.
I’m a bargain buyer, coupon cutter, and penny pincher all the way!
If you’ve got a piece of furniture that’s sitting in a closet somewhere before you think about donating it to a thrift store stop and brainstorm if you could repurpose it into something else.
Maybe do a little Pinterest search.
Now that I’d decided what it was going to be, next I needed to figure out how it was going to be.
I figured the best strategy was to use the whole bottom half, the first two drawers included.
Then all I’d have to do is simply detach the top. Then reattach it to the cut in half bottom part of the dresser.
Sounds easy enough.
Of course, the cut in half part really made me nervous.
After all, if I screwed up at all while cutting it the entire project would have to be scraped.
I ended up using my cordless Ryobi jigsaw for the cutting. I got mine on a Cyber Monday sale a few years back from a 5 piece kit.
The process is fairly straight forward.
It’s easy to saw uneven with these guys. So I used my chalk outliner to make a straight and evenly cut line all the way around the dresser.
I marked the line just above the first drawer. After the base of the third drawer but before the third drawer started.
I should mention that on top of being indecisive, and a penny pincher I’m also all about consolidating and saving time.
So, in the interest of maximizing time before cutting anything, I removed the drawers and handles.
I had painted the handles at one point white (sorry I don’t have a photo of that). So I soaked the handles in Citristrip, and wrapped them in saran wrap.
You can read all about the process I use to strip paint in a recent post of mine.
I also painted the drawers with a few coats of paint and let them dry while cutting/ constructing the nightstand.
After cutting the dresser in half all that’s left is to reattach the top to the soon to be French Provincial nightstand.
It all really came together after painting the nightstand though. Only then did it really start to look more like a nightstand and less like a demolished pile of particleboard.
I sealed it up, attached the handles, and the French Provincial dresser makeover was complete!
I’ve really been gravitating towards natural wood and dark colors lately.
Had this dresser been made out of actual wood instead of particle board I would have left it a natural wood color.
But it wasn’t so I decided to paint it black.
Oddly enough, Angela from takes a piece of furniture that is not made out of real wood and makes it appear as if it was as part of her upcycle in this month’s collaboration challenge.
Isn’t that great?!
Goes to prove my earlier statement about how amazing collaboration can be and how a problem can have several solutions!
I just love it!!
I was so excited to be a part of this collaboration.
And want to thank Tania from Created By A Gemini for putting this all together!!
Novembers Furniture Upcycle Participants and Projects
The conductor of this collaboration and the creative mind behind createdbyagemini.com Tania shows us how illusions can make your furniture upcycle look expensive and have features it never had.
Tania takes this storage bench from nothing special to a functional and stylish piece with fresh paint and new fabric.
She truly does some fun DIY woodworking projects.
One of her most recent projects features a herringbone design. Which coincidentally, in my most recent post about my DIY shed, I talk about how obsessed I am with herringbone. And how I implemented a herringbone paver design for the Piggy Palace pathway.
As I mentioned earlier Angela takes a piece of furniture that is not made out of real wood and makes it appear as if it was.
Last but not least of this month’s furniture upcycle challenge is Molly.
Molly from Just A Little Creativity shares how to easily give a dark, outdated thrift store desk new life with a paint and stain makeover using her favorite products from General Finishes.
Thank you so so so much for stopping by my blog today.
I hope you guys enjoyed this upcycle furniture challenge!
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