One of my daughters needed a dresser. Efiwym, my wife, told her we had a five-drawer dresser in the basement. We knew that it had seen its days. But Efiwym said she would check it out and see if it could be repaired.
We did not know where this dresser originally came from. We had taken in this orphan and stained it with a dark color and one of the kids used it in their bedrooms. The kids are gone, and this dresser had several broken drawers. Could it be saved again? That was going to be my job to see.
I went to the basement and removed several items sitting on the top of it. I pulled the dresser away from the wall. All the drawers were in the dresser; however, one was broken and the other two were missing the bottom base. Most of the drawer handles had been removed, but we had plenty of old ones to replace them. I pulled out all the drawers and placed them in my “workshop.” The dresser itself was sturdy and did not require any repair.
(I need to remember to take “before” pictures when I take on these DIY projects. Sadly, I do not have a picture of its present state. But, I do have an “after” picture.)
Two of the drawers were fine. All the pieces were there, and they too did not require repair. The other three drawers was a different story. The one broken drawer just needed to be put back together and glued. The other two needed new bases.
I would need to go to the home improvement store and get ¼” thick plywood. I did not necessarily need plywood. OSB, hardboard or any other material was fine as long it met 3 criteria: (1) ¼” thick, (2) strong to hold clothes, and (3) cheap. I found some dry-erase board that could work, and it was cheap, but I found OSB board, and it was cheaper. Because of the size of the base, 27” x 13”, I could not get 2 pieces from a 2 foot by 4-foot piece. So, I had to purchase two of them.
When I got home, I was fortunate to have a bottom from a drawer that was still intact. I used the measurements of that piece to cut the OSB bottoms. Boy, that was a mistake. That bottom was not exactly a tight fit. Unfortunately, I found out after I cut both pieces. The bottoms were wide enough, but not deep enough, like one-half inch. That meant that the bottom did not fit into the dado of the drawer front or back. I measured twice and cut once. Regrettably, I measured twice on a bad board.
All the drawers had blocking to support the bottoms. I thought it was to provide additional support. No, it was because whoever built it measured wrong. So, he used blocking to keep the bottoms from falling through.
For a Just-Okay-DIYer, I would figure it out…