DIY Drawer Pulls Using Round Dowels {DESK before & After}

This desk had a lot going for it, and a lot NOT going for it.  It's never difficult to find a cool knob or pull replacement in my stash for a night stand but when there are EIGHT to replace, not to mention three screw holes being left behind - not a walla-walla-bing-bang fix. And y'all should know I ain't looking to spend money on new pulls!  It's how I keep my prices for you guys low!

But first, let's check out this crazy finish job.  It had some eccentric pink tones mixed in with the browns.  And it wasn't wood, so I couldn't just sand 'er down and refinish.  I did sand, however, and most of the pink hues came out - thank goodness.  So I mixed up some DIY white chalk paint and did all the drawer fronts and bottom of the beast and then just covered the top in Old English stain to blend it all a little.  Still not "blended" the greatest... but it was the best I could do with what I was working with.  My dad says that about me a lot.  I wonder what he means.... 🤷‍♀️🤣

Good timing is what this is called - I've been organizing my junk upstairs in my workshop, otherwise I probably never would have known I had all these wood dowels just wasting away being useless up there!

I grabbed a couple and cut them into 3 inch pieces.  HOT DANG this Ryobi miter saw is a GAME CHANGER.  My dad gave me this for Christmas.  I didn't have any idea the piece of crap I've been putting up with until I started using this!!  But hey, makes me appreciate this beauty all that much more.  Dad, seriously.  You know how to make a daughter happy!  He might not ever tell me he loves me, but this makes up for it. Ha.

Next, I lined up my piece with the holes on the drawer front and using a pencil made marks where the pull holes would need to go.

I hammered a thin nail into my marks, just so it would be easier to get the screws started.

I'm an amateur and I'm sure there are better ways to do this.  But I do what I want to do.

My wood pieces weren't without flaw, plus the raw edge looked tacky (duh), so I fixed that with good ole' Old English.  Everyone should keep a bottle of this handy.  I used a rag to wipe it over the piece.  The thing is, it's like that bottle of lemon juice that sits in my fridge.  It just never seems to run out.  I swear I bought this eighteen years ago.

My first attempt cracked the drawer pull right in half because my screw was too fat.  

So I wasted another chunk of time rummaging around for the perfect screws.  Thin, fat head, sharp, just the right length.... I'm an experimenter, yo.

And BAM, just like that, I have awesome rustic wooden drawer pulls!

I will definitely be making these again!!!

I've been lazy with my photography lately and using my phone camera.  My phone camera was at one time decent, but after it falls out of your pocket as you climb into an uber and sits submerged in a street gutter for a couple hours, not so much. Or the latest adventure, in a river.  But we won't discuss that here.

I should take time for a little shout-out to my daughter's friend for the desk.  They are moving into a new house and the previous owners left furniture that Saint Vincent De Paul was scheduled to come pick up.  So cute little Bridget says, "Mom, I think Tori's mom might want some of this stuff".  GIRL, you are awesome.  That is all.  You will be seeing more from that haul in the future, I'm sure!

Like this idea?  Pin it for later!

Thanks for stopping by!

Follow Kammy's Korner on:

Facebook

Pinterest

Etsy

Instagram

 You might also like:

Old School {Desk Makeover}

If you call me and I don't answer (because NO, I do not always carry my darn phone on me) you will hear:

"Hey, you've got Kammy.  Hang up and text me or if you're old school I guess you can leave me a message and maybe I'll get back with you. *beeeeep*"

So about every four or five days I get a voicemail and it's always the same voice saying the same thing....

"Hey Kammy, this is Old School.  Can you mow my lawn tomorrow?"

Oh I just love it.  "Old School" always makes me smile.

And since we're on the subject, I just gotta throw this out there....

sorry I could not find the originator of this!

Wait, were some of you here to see a desk?  Let's get to that! :) 

When I finally get a free spot in my booth at the Parma Antique Mall, this old school desk will be going in, in a building full of "old school" awesomeness!! :)

Click HERE to "Like" the Parma Antique Mall on Facebook to see all the cool stuff they are constantly getting in!

Short and sweet post is all I got for you today, but thanks for stopping by!

Follow Kammy's Korner on:

Facebook

Pinterest

Etsy

Instagram

 You might also like:

Vintage School Desk Makeover

My little messenger "ding" went off on my cell phone, telling me another message had come in.  It was a friend who was wanting some advice on how to go about painting a little table.  Since I'm super pooey at tutorials and strongly dislike trying to explain how to do things because I don't even know what I'm doing half the time, I told her to just bring it over some day and we'd do it together.

Now that, is what I call a girl's date!

So we set a date -and then another, and another - until we could finally get together and she pulled in my driveway and I was all excited to see the little table (and her, and her cute kids!!) when she pulls out this vintage old desk - complete with hot pink paint, chalkboard paint, and stickers, nooks and crannies, metal and laminate, wood and ohhhhhh the same desk that I have been avoiding redoing in my own workshop!  Haha!  But hey.  Let's do this!!

After peeling off stickers and scraping all the chalk board paint off the desk top, we set to making some chalk paint.  I can't remember if I used Plaster of Paris or Webpatch 90, but they both work great!  Just dissolve a couple spoonfuls in some hot water and add paint.  We went with a charcoal gray on the metal and black on the wood.

Then we needed to add some pizzazz.  So we went hunting through some of my stencils and AnnMarie decided on this small chevron design.

Since we were keeping the laminate desk top in it's original state, we used an off white cream color for the stencil to tie it all together.

I absolutely LOVE the outcome of this little desk!  And it kind of even made me want to tackle the one that's been sitting in my shop for everrrrrr.

I sent her home with some polyurethane to seal it all in good.  Well, about enough to do .02% of it since I was almost clean out, but the can told her what to buy at least.  

If you like it, say so by pinning it! :)

Thanks for stopping by!!  

Like what you see?  Follow Kammy's Korner on:

Facebook

Pinterest

Etsy

Instagram

 You might also like:

The Eastlake Antique That Was Being Obliterated With a Sledge Hammer

So one fateful day...  Mom and I were driving around in our little village of Parma.  Not just 'cuz... but 'cuz it was village garage sale day.  So naturally when we came to a house with furniture scattered all over the driveway, we assumed they were part of the sale.  But NO!  Much to our horror and sheer astonishment... there were people.  With sledge hammers.  Destroying gorgeous antiques!!!!  AHHHHHHH I can hardly think about it.  What happened next is a little blurry in my memory but I think I ran up the driveway like a phsycopath yelling STOPPPPPPPPPPPPPP WHAT ARE YOU DOINGGGGGGGGGG.  They looked totally annoyed at me... and barely hesitated before the next drawer from a beautiful desk got smashed to smithereens and tossed into the back of a pick up truck.  

Mom and I surveyed the remains of several former beauties and tried to regain our freaked-out composure.  I convinced them that if they were just taking it all to the dump ANYWAY, and if I could be back in five minutes with my own truck...could I please try to salvage a few things?  It was too late to save all of this beauty - it once had a third piece that went on the sides and up tall behind the cubbies/drawers (see those pegs on the edge where it sat?) but I still thought it could be salvaged and fixed up, whole or not.

Without the back piece, I couldn't keep the cubbies and drawers on the desk because it left an open space on the desk behind it and the drawers stuck out back too far and were left exposed.  Hopefully you can follow a little bit of what I'm trying to describe here.  If not, just trust me when I say it wouldn't work to keep the awesome cubbies on the desktop, dog-gone-it.

The top is really cool and slides out.  That made it much easier to work on!  I sanded it all down... but wow - it had some major carvings and grooves that were just plain ol' too deep to sand off.

I decided to paint the middle black to try to hide some of the craziness that was going on, but really wanted to have some wood for a richer two-tone look so I stained the outer edge with Minwax Dark Walnut.

Here you can see the big open gap in the back of the desk!  I found a board and cut it to size with one of my besties - my miter saw - and painted it black.  Yes, I really love my power tools that much.

I secured it with wood glue and a few nails from my other bestie, a Ryobi battery powered nail gun.  YES, they really do make such a thing!!!  And it is fan-double-tastic!!!  Understatement.  Ryobi, you really should be paying me to advertise for you like this.

I love how that part turned out - phew!  Kind of one of those things that has you scratching your head but seems to work out in the end:

Then there was the problem of no drawers.  Those were all in little splintered pieces in the back of the truck.  I don't even want to think about what they were laying next too.  Sniffle, sniffle.  Well shucks, we've conquered the "missing drawer" problem several times here on Kammy's Korner, so that really wasn't all that difficult.  I took one of the dividers out to make it a larger cubby, and then cut shelves to take the place of the drawers.

The open spaces under this desk make the perfect book shelves!

Gotta love the detail of this Eastlake style:

 While I was cleaning up the wood and wiping off all the spider webs, I noticed on the back of the bottom right "cubby" the words "Leslie, Michigan".  Well, I sure couldn't paint over that!  Leslie is a town not far from us.  I left the wood "as is". :)  It matches the top that way, too.  Too bad I couldn't keep the look symmetrical as the left side didn't match.  Drat.

One final shot of the before and after:

And while I debate about whether or not I want this Eastlake beauty-turned-rustic to stay in my possession, it is for sale at the Parma Antique Mall.  So hurry and grab it before I decide it needs to stay in my living room and go get it back.  I can do that, you know. ;)

Please follow Kammy's Korner on:

 Consider following Kammy's Korner on:

Facebook

Pinterest

Etsy

Instagram

You might also like:

sharing:

Wow Us Wednesdays #302