My wife and I were walking the neighborhood and found a discarded Ikea dresser. The drawers were broken off, the top was no longer attached and the backing material was falling apart. However, the frame was solid wood and in reasonable shape. We were looking for a new dresser and this seemed repairable.

I took it to the West Seattle Tool Library. I replaced the drawer side rollers with a smoother feeling under drawer slide. I then added new drawer supports to the main structure. The drawers were falling apart so I rebuilt them with more solid bottoms. I replaced all dowel and cam lock screws with glue and wood screws. Kreg screws were used between the drawer supports and vertical legs for additional support. Finally, I replaced the shoddy fiber board backing with 1/4″ pine plywood. The entire dresser was sanded until the major defects were removed and it felt smooth.

I brought the dresser back home to paint it. We were going for a distressed look so after each layer of paint we sanded it down to different depths at random spots. We used a different color each layer to simulate it being repainted several times throughout its life.