It's Week 3 of the One Room Challenge and so far I've laid new flooring and hung wallpaper and new lighting. We spent last week on a road trip to visit my two eldest nieces at their colleges and enjoy some fall leaves so I didn't make a lot of progress on my Loft Studio for this week's update. I did start working on my built-in storage, however. I already owned two 8 drawer Hemnes dressers so my plan is to modify them to look built-in.
Since I'm planning to use 3-1/4" tall baseboard in the room I started by cutting down the dresser legs so that I'd have a 3/4" reveal under the bottom row of drawers. To avoid any tear out I taped up the legs with some painter's tape before cutting them with my circular saw. This would have been much easier to do with the dressers unassembled, but I didn't feel like taking them apart.
I wanted the dresser to sit flush against the wall so next I trimmed down the right side of the top, scribing it to the wall.
Since nothing in my 140+ year house is plumb or square, it turns out that I had a gap between the sloped ceiling and the back of the dresser on the right side so I cut a filler piece and tacked it on the back. Once it is caulked and painted it should look seamless.
My plan is to add a bookcase with paper storage on the end of the dresser so I needed to add some filler pieces to make everything work. To extend the top I ripped down a portion of the top that I previously cut off from the right side. For the filler piece along the side I used a 1x3 and attached it with pocket holes from the back.
While I was sliding the drawers into the frame I swapped out the knobs that came with the dresser for some fun brass ring pulls. I think they really elevate the dresser.
Even though I am far from done, I couldn't resist setting out a few of my storage items including a vintage ceramic toast holder that I'm using to store quilting templates and a blue glass jar from Belgium that stores my Sharpies.
Next up I need to replicate the same process for the second dresser on the opposite side. I also plan to build the bookcases to go at the end of the dressers and then I can install the baseboard. Hopefully I'll make good progress this weekend!
