These 3 drawers came from a totally trashed desk that I bought about 4 years ago. The desk is too messed up to do anything with, so I was the only bidder on it, and I never pass up old drawers that I can get a good deal on – there’s just too many great ways to reuse them.
Two of them were turned into modified wall shelves or cubbies, in the same manner as this set that I showed you a few months ago. I left the bakelite handles and just cleaned up the fronts of the drawers.
Doing this just requires that you cut off the back end of the drawers, so they don’t stick out from the wall too far, and add hangers on the back. These drawers also required some gluing in the dovetail joints, as they had gotten pulled apart. These 2 drawers are available in my online shop HERE.
I wanted a different look for the third drawer, so beadboard was added to the back and a piece of pine board was added to make a shelf, then the whole thing was painted white.
I thought about stenciling a design inside, but ended up deciding not to, because I was afraid it might look to “busy” once things were placed on the shelf.
It’s available in my shop HERE.
While I was on my road trip on Saturday, I found the pretty homespun towels at booth in a huge antique store. They aren’t vintage, but I loved all the different patterns. After we left, I started kicking myself that I didn’t buy more sets in other colors that they had available. When I got home, I searched to see where else this brand of dish towels could be purchased, and discovered that there are lots of the on Amazon, for the same price I paid with free shipping (w/order over $35)! In case anyone else likes them, here’s the link for them (this is an affiliate link).
This drawer shelf is available in my shop HERE.
Click HERE to see more repurposed shelves!
Dunroven House towels wear like iron. I’ve had several of them for nearly 15 years and they are still almost like new!
Love your shelves and those towels. Thanks for sharing your amazing talent!
Love the drawers both ways! I mostly go brain-dead when we run across really damaged junk. Your wheels are always turning, Angie 🙂
Good on you for salvaging what you could of the desk and turning those drawers into beautiful and useful household items…this seems to be your forte! 🙂 Those dovetailed joints are delicious…they just don’t make furniture like that anymore…that’s why I buy all of the old stuff instead…it’s worth the work of fixing it up to have real wood put together sturdily!
This is a great repurpose project for the drawers and I think you made a good choice not to stencil the other one. The board backing really made this piece. I think the towels really look like a vintage pattern even though they aren’t….I love towels and linens like that (I am a real sucker for them).