Dog Dresser is DONE! Tutorial!

A couple days ago, I posted a thread about how I was going to attempt to convert an old dresser that was lying around the house into a "dog dresser" with hanging space. Well it's DONE! Over the weekend - with the help of my wonderful dad - we completely converted the old, cheap dresser into a very nice piece of furniture with hanging space for Ote's clothes and storage areas for her and Mojo's toys, treats, and grooming supplies. I am SO HAPPY with the way the it turned out.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



A lot of you ladies seemed really interested in creating your own dog dresser, so through out the process of converting the dresser, I took a ton of pictures so that you could see it step-by-step!

First - remove all of the drawers.



Bust out all of the drawer slides with a hammer.



You may have to get the stubborn drawer slides that are built into the sides out by wedging a flat-headed screwdriver into the small space and popping the pieces out.



Leave the main support pieces (the back two horizontal wood pieces in our photo). Without these pieces, the dresser would not be sturdy.

After removing all drawer slides, you will be putting in three wood pieces on each side of the dresser in order to make it a more sturdy piece of furniture (this also allows you to screw things into the outside of the dresser like I did with the "dog butt" hooks.....otherwise the screw will go right through the thin wood of the dresser). Notice that the supports are at the very top, the middle, and the very bottom of the sides.



Next, cut pieces to fit the inside sides of the dresser. And use a staple gun and wood glue to secure the pieces to the inside left and right sides.



Next cut a piece to fit the inside bottom of the dresser, like a shelf. You may notice there was a piece of material in this spot before (it was a piece of "wood grain" corrugated, but it was not anywhere near sturdy enough to support baskets or storage devices.



Next, cut a piece of wood to fit the back of your dresser. Again, use wood glue and a staple gun to secure the wood.



After this, we created the rod to hang the clothes on. You could always use a tension rod for this, or even a shower curtain.



Now comes the fun part - PAINTING! First, sand all surfaces that will be painted. Then paint away! This should require two to three layers of paint. We used a white lacquer spray paint. Allow about 24 hours in between coats.

And here is the finished product. The baskets are from Marshall's, as well as the hangers (they are infant hangers). The "dog butt" hooks are from Ikea. The large green basket is for extra toys, the other containers are for bandannas, bows and more. The drawer also has some containers to organize dog medicines, treats and blankets.





Let me know what you all think!