Sunday, May 22, 2011

Creative or just plain Crazy?

I happened upon a free 5 drawer chest of drawers. It looked pretty nice in the picture (before picking it up) and the giver said the bottom drawer was broken, but I figured I could easily fix that.
Upon bringing it home I realized that the bottom Two drawers were VERY broken (Not just missing a few screws like the owner had said). It actually looked like a kid may have tried to climb it because the sliders were broken to the point of in operable or repairable. the drawers themselves were cracked and broken down the sides. This was going to be more work than I imagined. AND it ended up being a MUCH bigger piece in real life than it appeared in the picture. But it was FREE I'm not complaining so here it is: (Minus the top 4 drawers see the bottom one is literally just hanging there.)
Well Mr. Creative said "throw it out or take it to goodwill now!" So I told him of what I though was a "creative" idea. Fixing all the broken components in the lower two drawers seemed doable but a pain and possibly costly and pointless. My solution: Cut the bottom two drawers off. Mr. Creative was semi open to the idea but then looked at the dresser a week ago and told me "forget it." Well maybe it is silly but I had visions of me taking a chain saw and sawing this baby apart. So I talked him out of driving it to Good Will and Yesterday I took a "4 hour of Me time" break in my garage with said dresser and all our tools (We have many but they are all very basic and I now know why people always want more tools hehehe!) I honestly thought the Mister would chuck it if I waited any longer and I really wanted to try to dismantle a piece of furniture that one had no meaning to me or cost for that matter and two wasn't an antique type piece. Through out the process I made mistakes. I hadn't sat down and planned out as I should have. I also was unsure about my tools and probably needed a few different ones but I was just using what we had on hand. So with a lot of sawing dust and a little Jimmy rigging I turned a broken down chest of drawers into this.

I wish I would have taken picture of the during, but to be honest I had a few high stress frustrating moments that made me not think about the camera as much as if I had just been nuts to do this.
I know you may not think this looks very cool but you have to keep in mind I didn't just saw through it. If you notice I had to cut legs on it. Which required me to dismantle at least half of it. I had a neighbor ask me what I was doing (I think my neighbors laugh every time they see me in the garage because I always have a "new project".)
Things I learned during this process:
1. Cutting furniture down is NOT as easy as it sounds.
2. Pieces that come off may not fit back the same way after you have cut and hammered a piece
3. Planning ahead could save you time and mistakes. (I was really just worried if I didn't hack it out in a few hours I wouldn't get this chance that is why I didn't plan much.)
4. Power tools are awesome!
5. Wearing Big Clear Glasses can save your eyes as well as get a chuckle out of your spouse
6. I want more power tools now that I know what they can do!

So tell me do you think my idea was Creative or are you with the Mister and just think I'm plain crazy?

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