Furniture Fit for a Princess: Upcycled Dress Up Cabinet

Have you ever had times where you have a million projects going on at once but can’t seem to finish one? That’s been my situation for almost three weeks now. I have a list of things to do that’s a mile long, but I haven’t been able to cross anything off…until now. I finally finished something! And boy,  was it worth it!

I currently keep all of my daughter’s dress up clothes in a box on shelves in her room. It makes it difficult for her to find matching pieces and is just so disorganized. There is absolutely no more room in her closet to hang them up, so I decided to make a dress up cabinet from an old dresser I found at a thrift store. Here’s a tutorial of how I created it.

I found this dresser at a thrift store for $10. It’s made of particle board with a wood laminate cover, but it will do the trick.

First, I removed the drawers and knocked out the wood holding the drawers with a hammer. The metal track that the drawers slid on were stapled into the wood.

I had to go to Home Depot to buy a tack remover to pry the staples out because the darn things wouldn’t budge.

Once that was finished, I sanded the piece and used wood puddy to fill in any staple or nail holes. I sanded again.

I then used a spray primer to prime the piece. I was originally going to paint it a bright pink, so I got a gray primer. It was a big mistake when I changed my mind and decided to go with white. It took about four good coats to get it where I wanted.  

I bought some Behr painter and primer in one to paint the inside pink. That actually took very well since there was no laminate on the inside.

I painted “Let’s Play Dress Up” at the bottom.

I hung a dowel rod at the top to hang the costumes.

At first I was going to glue it in, but the glue wouldn’t hold on the paint. I then drilled screws in the sides to hold it, which left ugly screws. I tried painting them but it just wouldn’t cut it.

So, I went to plan B and bought two jeweled crown pins to cover the screws. I removed the pins and glued the crowns over the screws. Worked like a charm.

I was going to make a mirror out and frame it with an old spray painted frame to hang on the side, but  I couldn’t find a mirror that was already cut to fit. I found this mirror at Hobby Lobby for $9.99 which I purchased for $6.00 with a coupon. Because it was cheap, it was also light and hung on the side of the cabinet nicely. The color also matched pretty well, so I didn’t have to paint it.

On the other side, I screwed in a hook which I painted pink to match the inside of the cabinet.

When I FINALLY finished, it looked great, and was ready for all of my little munchkins dress up clothes and accessories!

Here’s the breakdown of what it cost me to make:

Dresser: $10
Rod: $1.49, Michaels
Mirror: $6.00 (with 40% off coupon), Hobby Lobby
Crown Screw Covers: $3.58 (with 2 40% off coupons) Hobby Lobby
Behr Paint Sample in Pink: $2.94, Home Depot
Hook: $3.50 (50% off sale), Hobby Lobby
Primer: 3.98, Home Depot
Spray Paint: $3.87, Home Depot (used nearly 2 cans, but already had one on hand)

Grand Total: $35.38

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