Over Easter, an IKEA chest of drawers returned to me after a few years at a relative’s house. While it was in good condition, I’ve only recently finished building three new chests of drawers. Plus I had to completely dismantle it to get it to fit in my car.
So I decided to upcycle it into two tapering bookcases. The two sides of the chest of drawers are cut in half at an angle, rounded over and given a good sanding to remove the IKEA varnish.
I made some new shelves from some scrap ¾ inch plywood, added pine edging, and reused the wooden braces and fixings from the original chest of drawers. This meant I had to drill a fair few holes, so used a story stick / template to ensure I did so accurately.
I was able to reuse the backer board (still the same width), and luckily had some spare backer board hanging around the shop, which I cut down to size.
Lovely Wife stuck some colourful decoupage paper on the inside face of the backer boards to cheer them up a bit, and these were sealed with some water-borne polyurethane varnish.
The bookcase sides and shelves were stained using Mann’s Antique Pine water-based wood stain, and finished using Osmo Top Oil.
