BE MADE: {Spit*Shined}: Little Brown Dresser

First off, I'd like to say,

Welcome to Texas, Spring!

Awesome, right?

Yeah, can't really complain about my new home. :)

Lovin' my yard full of bluebonnets, too!

Okay, back to our little project. I decided to go ahead with this one because I wanted its new home to be in the kitchen, and since I have yet to photograph it for {My Old House}, I thought it would be good to get it done and in there so photographing may commence. :)

This little guy was actually left behind in the house. I kept it thinking it would make a good dresser but it wasn't really in the best shape to serve that purpose anymore. But, still, it had to have some function left....

Somehow I realized I wanted to turn it into a bookcase/kitchen organizer. See, this is my current set-up for my cookbooks. It's not really working out anymore, as I keep acquiring cookbooks. And it just looked messy. So, in short: I didn't like it. And I wanted something different.

First things first, a new paint color. My kitchen is yellow with red accents. At first, I thought of just going neutral with it. But then the red spray paint caught my eye. And we were sold (I had dear hubby's input on this).

So, I removed the drawers and wiped down the dresser and painted her pretty. And boy did she get pretty in red!

Now, the shelves. I measured and cut from plywood three shelves for the new unit. My plan is to have baskets in the top and bottom for extra storage and have my cookbooks in the middle. After each piece was cut, they were painted to match.

While I waited for the shelves to dry, I realized I've got this really ugly back on my bookcase. I didn't really want it to be red, plus that cardboard backer material is SUPER absorbant and would have taken forever to paint. I rummaged through my fabric scraps I've collected and came across the perfect piece. Stapled it to the back, and voila!

So, I guess you can see I didn't do the entire back. There is a reason for that. See, this material...it's silk. Yeah, silk. I was saving it, along with some coordinating fabric, for some awesome pillows, but it was too perfect for this unit and I had to use it. So, in order to salvage as much of the fabric as possible to maybe one day (there's that phrase again!) make those awesome pillows, I only covered the part of the back that would be visible.

Once we started adding in the shelves, it became clear the middle shelf would need additional support for all the cookbooks. Enter my handy-dandy hubby who pieced in this little "T" for that extra oomph.

All shelves in! Woo hoo! I'm pretty stoked at this point!

But the one thing my chrome rolly cart has that I use/need is hooks. I had, at first, grabbed some little single bronze hooks to add to the side of my new cookbook case, but then my eyes grabbed a set of glass cabinet knobs and it was love at first sight. So, I added three to one side, and a single knob to the other.