Cheeseball's New Armoire

Hoorah! Hooray! Today is a day to celebrate! I've finally finished a project that has been rolling around in my brain for at least 6 months. And it feels soooo good.

Cheeseball had a dresser that was very cute when we first got it, years ago, but had fallen into a pretty sad state of disrepair. I'm sure it could have been fixed, but with her Ikea wardrobe necessitated by the lack of built in closets in German houses, she really didn't need dresser drawers anymore. So, I wanted to transform the old dresser into an armoire for doll and barbie clothes. And with a little fabric and about a gallon of mod podge, that's exactly what I did!


The dresser in all it's previous abused-by-a-four-year-old glory.

First, I removed all but the bottom drawer.



Then, I took out the hardware and removed the top of the dresser.



And this is where my nice, handy step by step pictures come to a screeching halt. I used mod podge to apply the fabric to the inner walls and underneath the top of the dresser. I realized that the side walls were so thin, any hanging rod hardware was going to come through the other side. So, when I had the wood for the base of the armoire (over the bottom dresser) cut, I drew some hearts on to the scrap wood and they cut those out for me as well.



Again using mod podge, I covered the hearts with the two coordinating fabrics I had picked from Heather Bailey's completely lovely Nicey Jane collection. Then, while hanging the Ikea Deka curtain rods, screwed through the side walls and right in to the wood hearts.



The last step was sewing the curtains. And voila!




Peeking in.



Unfortunately, the back of the dresser is multi piece, very thin and only connected on the extreme sides. I should have reinforced that somehow before applying the fabric, because you can see some pockets where the fabric meets nothing. I'm a little bummed about this.

We're using big clothespins right now. But, my friend Alicia was kind enough to pick up some mini clothespins for me because I can't find them here or anywhere online that will ship to an APO. When those get here, I plan to cover them in washi tape and then they'll be perfect for a teeny tiny doll armoire.

We're also using cereal bowls to corral Barbie shoes, doll shoes, Barbie purses, etc... But, maybe future renovations will effect a solution for those as well.

Cheeseball and I are both so pleased with how this came out! I'm discovering a great love for upcycling and transforming and this was the perfect candidate to make new.