Where does your old drawer chest go after purchasing a new one? To the garage? To the village house? To “poor relatives”? But you know, if the furniture is still quite strong, it deserves to have a chance for a new life. We have already offered to our readers some interesting ideas of upgrading the old furniture. Now we offer you to have a look on how to crate shelves from drawers. Here we collected a lot of ideas plus we have two DIY home decor tutorials of making shelves from old drawers.
Let’s imagine, that you have an old chest of drawers, desk or kitchen cabinets, which you do not want to throw away, as well as to keep in the same place, because you have already bought a new substitution to old furniture.
What combines these pieces of furniture is that they have drawers, which can be turned into unusual and practical piece of furniture. You’ll see how to make such original wall shelves made from drawers, even racks from an old drawer chest, table or cabinet. You will also see good diy home decor tutorial
Most likely, such creative idea will appeal to the lovers of vintage creative solutions as well as those who want to renovate the interior with little or no investment.
In the end of this gallery we will show 2 workshops on creating shelves from boxes of old furniture.
For doing such stuff you can use any old boxes – made of wood or chipboard. You can use drawers from old drawer chest, a desk or old kitchen furniture:
Here are steps, which you need to perform: – Remove the drawers from old furniture, check for the integrity of the surfaces; – either to remove the handles or not – it is a matter of taste – Change the appearance of boxes, if you want (you will see the following options for processing the back of the background); – Add the cross shelves – tighten these shelves with the screws to the wall at a convenient height; – you can make small boxes removable
– arrange your stuff or decor in those boxes.
How to use drawers or cabinet from an an old chest
Small boxes are ideal for interior decoration, and from medium or large cabinets, you can create additional storage space.
Option number 1: beautiful – displays for decoration:
Beautiful tableware, plastic art, differnet collections and even photos – all of the above, while in boxes mounted on the walls, looks very unusual.
Option number 2: comfortable – shelves for small items:
Books and CDs, bath and table accessories, shoes and jewelry, handicrafts and stationery, garden and home tools – it is by far not a complete list of small things that can be placed in boxes of old furniture, hanging on the wall.
How to make the boxes made of shelves more attractive and practical
Change the type of boxes based on your own imagination and of course the final destination.
design of the rear(back) wall:
In this case, the “rear wall” – is a bottom of the box. Now, how to make it more interesting could be a challange. Use remains of an old or new wallpaper or fabric (for all surfaces), smooth or textured paint (for wood and plywood), paint with effect slate, sheet music or old maps. In short, everything that you can find at home that you no longer need or use for other purposes.
Internal shelves:
For the boxes that turn into three-dimensional shelf, it makes sense to do the horizontal partitioning, ie shelves inside. Sometimes they have alreadybeen pre-planned of by manufacturer. If you are going to place small, but heavy trinkets, make sure to place extra support at the bottom (wood plate or bracket).
Other ideas for the old shelves and boxes from the old cabinet
If you have a whole lot of boxes from old furniture – you can make a somewhat creative composition using all the old boxes and shelves. You can even use horizontal shelves, placing them on the walls it will look as if they are coming out of the wall itself.
How to combine multiple types of old drawers and create a DIY home decor:
To combine different boxes and shelves, use them closely spaced from one another at different angles and in combination with traditional shelves and wall decorations, adding modular sections, or combinbin them in packs.
Horizontal mounting of drawers:
In the small boxes attached to the wall in a usuall traditional maner (handle at the front), you can place extra trinkets. But they need to be hung on the robust brackets used for shelving to handle extra weight.
Floor racks of old dresser drawers:
Build a rack, even though it might not be the most spacious, but you will not spend a dime on it! Besides checking boxes for sturdiness, reliability and an update of the shelves appearance you also need to figure out composition of the modules, so that it it not only pretty but also stable. Than firmly connect boxes with each other, right before you attach those to the wall.
Master Class – build your own modular bookcase from old boxes:
Author – Monica from the blog Craftynest. Monica purchased a couple of boxes from the kitchen of 40s at a flea market. (wooden frame with the bottom of the DVP). You can see in the picture something similar to what Monica did with her purchesd boxes: she touched up dents and cut outs, outside and inside she used paint to cover boxes in certain color, to the bottom (which became the back wall) she glued decorative paper. As a last step, she built a vertical composition, and attched each box to the wall with firm screws.
One more example in detail:
Another interesting solution for your old kitchen furniture made of wood: you can use not only boxes but also the frames from kitchen furniture set. By turn the elements in different ways you can create the optimal composition, (try if possible, creating it with no gaps). Attach each element to the wall, and add a strong bottom brackets.