Dresser to Record Shelf

My Wife has been asking me to build a new shelf for our records and record player for a while now. I figured moving into our new home was as good a time as any to build some new furniture. I wanted to make something that emulated 70's style furniture. I played around with a few designs but nothing really struck me. One day while I was walking my dogs I passed a house with several old pieces of furniture on the curb. I saw this dresser with six beat up drawers. It was old, dirty, dilapidated and 70's as hell.  I loaded it in my truck and brought it home and started working on it that day.

The first thing I had to do was get rid of the drawers. After I took them out as well as removing the back panel I was able to give it a thorough cleaning. I'm not sure how long it lived on the side walk but it dirt and bugs made me thing it had been there for quite a long time.

After cleaning I installed a shelf on the top and one of bottom out of some scraps of plywood I had lying around. For a nicer look I used a couple pieces of oak as fascia for the upper shelf. Once the shelves were installed I started sanding. This was the longest step in the whole process.

The top of the dresser was white laminate. I was initially going to remove it and make a new wood top but I had an idea to stain the whole piece a very dark color and leave the top bright white. I think it turned out great. I stained and polyed the wood and bleached the hell out of the top.


There you have it, a brand new 70's style record shelf. I used the two upper cubbies for my stereo and cd player and the lower shelf for our records.
The whole project took about a week and I am very happy with the way it turned out. Bulk trash week has been a bit of a gold mine for me this year.