circular saws, popsicles, and wood glue // diy

Those three items characterized my last few days. It's been wonderful.

Although side note? Girls in lipstick don't get taken very seriously in hardware stores.

Back to the story. The guest room in our apartment has this awkward nook next to the closet that we've never really known how to use. It was the perfect size for a little end-table, but not much else, and when you're in a little-ish apartment, every little bit of space counts. However, this is what it looked like once little Spock joined our family:

Yep, it's been commandeered by the bird, which we're totally okay with, but look at the "Beverly Hillbillies" setup we've got going on. To make the cage high enough, we had to stack a side table on top of another side table. It's the leaning tower of Pisa! We put up with it for three weeks, and then enough was enough. Our Printer kept getting covered in birdseed, Spock discovered he could hide in the spot between the wall and the giant stack, and, well it looks dumb.

But seriously nothing else would fit there! We'd need something a little over two feet wide, tall enough to reach the window, but not too tall as to block it. Now, we had a dresser that was the perfect height, but was a little bit too wide. It was Tim's dresser when he was a kid, and we'd been using it to store all my crafty-supplies...

...in our hallway. This was another reason I was itching to figure out a way to make this work.

It was at least 10 inches too wide, so if it were to fit into the "nook" we would have to do surgery. We figured, what the heck?

The plan was thus:

Tim was really skeptical. However, this one project would tackle both the giant tower of end-tables AND the dresser blocking part of the hallway. So it was HAPPENING.

I marked the center point on the dresser with chalk, and then again with tape so I'd know exactly where to cut. Because tape was a lot easier to see than chalk, and I was scared.

And then, it was time to cut.

MUAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Holy moley, there's nothing like a good power tool. AAAANDTim let me use the circular saw when he wasn't home. That's growth, man.

(of course, he did "surprise" me by coming home for lunch when I texted him a picture of my progress... Maybe we still have a little ways to go in the trust department.)

TADAAAAA!

Just kidding. We still had a ways to go.

Using Gorilla Wood Glue, we attached the two dresser pieces together. When I replace the drawer struts, it will get even more support, but since it would be tucked into a small space and only would be holding a birdcage, I wasn't worried about strength. 

Then came the paint job.

Step 1  //  Step 2

We finished this dresser with a paint job similar to that of our dining room table, with a few tweaks. We knew we wanted to use color, so rather than white-washing it, we watered down some blue paint (using a 60% water; 40% paint ratio). It only took one quick coat to get the effect we wanted, and 1/3 cup was more than enough to get the job done.

It fits perfectly in the awkward nook, and you can only tell it was pieced together if you look really closely. Success! Eventually, I'll get around to surgery on the three drawers, but for the time being, we've got a burlap curtain hiding all the little things that will eventually live in those drawers. It does the trick.