20 Funky Ways To Update Your Chest of Drawers: Ideas & Inspiration

When it comes to updates for a chest of drawers, you don’t need to pull the whole chest apart and completely redo it. Just adding a touch of bright color in milk paint can bring a funky little accent to the piece and make it look brand-new. Adding an accent color to your dresser is a great way to pull in colors from elsewhere in the room, and you can also draw attention to the best parts of your dresser’s trim by accentuating them. (via D.D.’s Cottage)
Here’s another chest of drawers update that converts the dresser into another piece of furniture. In this upgrade, the chest of drawers is transformed into a rustic bathroom vanity. You’ll need some carpentry skills to cut out a section for the bathroom sink to be placed, so this is a project that is best for crafters that have a little experience under their belt. Once you’ve got the chest of drawers refinished and in place, you can call in a plumber to hook everything up. (via Lynn Fern)
An upcycled chest of drawers is the perfect base to use as the frame for a DIY home bar. If you have a dresser at home that’s missing drawers or you find a tattered specimen on the curb, a little TLC at home can leave you with the perfect piece of furniture for displaying your liquor bottles or shot glass collection. This DIY bar made from a discarded chest of drawers at My Creative Days even includes ice storage and a rack to store your glasses. (via My Creative Days)

20 Unique Ideas for Upgrading Your Chest of Drawers

1. Retro Chest of Drawers

2. Dripping Paint Chest of Drawers

Your drawers go through a lot of rough and tough wear. So it’s nice to be able to give them a makeover once in a while to update their look and get rid of the visible nicks and bangs. And there are so many inventive and easy ways to make it happen!

3. DIY Mirrored Chest of Drawers

Be different and bold! Take something you find inspirational and try it out yourself. Use this tutorial to make something playful and artsy. Pink out your favorite colors in various shades and have a ball with it. The organic dripping look of this dresser design means that there is no wrong way to pull it off. The messier-looking, the better! 

4. Typography Chest of Drawers

5. Striped Chest of Drawers

6. Collage Chest of Drawers

The post 20 Funky Ways To Update Your Chest of Drawers: Ideas & Inspiration appeared first on Homedit.

7. Stenciled Chest of Drawers

Using this DIY, you can really make a retro room come to life, or have a little stand-out piece of your own. Great in a hallway, a craft room or one of your child’s bedrooms … a rad retro chest of drawers is always a great choice for a makeover. Whether you want your bedroom to look like a set for Mad Men or you just want to add a whimsical touch of the past to your design, you can’t go wrong with this update. 

8. Bar Chest of Drawers

One way to update the decor in a room is to incorporate more patterns or textures. A great way to do this is with dresser overlays. These thin wooden cutouts can be placed over the drawers of a dresser to give it a raised pattern that instantly adds visual interest to the furniture. Overlays can be added either in the same color as the chest of drawers or in a contrasting color so that the pattern is even more dramatic. (via My Overlays)

9. DIY Nailhead Trim Chest of Drawers

There are so many simple ways to update your chest of drawers. If you’re new to DIY projects, just updating the hardware or adding a new color to the wood can make a massive impact on how the room looks. Even if you’re not that experienced with carpentry, renovating a chest of drawers is the perfect beginner project to get your feet wet with this area of home crafting. The possibilities for changing up your dresser’s look are endless. Add new paint and finishes. Stain the wood or change the knobs. Just remember that you don’t have to throw out a chest just because it’s old and worn. There are so many ways to make it look brand new again!

10. Refurbished Chest of Drawers

Maybe your daughter wants something chic and girly .. or maybe you want something right out of an upscale boutique. With this DIY … you can! All you need are something beautiful mirrors to fix up an old chest. Mirrors are also the perfect way to make smaller rooms look spacious since reflections create the optical illusion of making the room appear bigger. Top it off with a mirror glass top for an amazing art deco look. 
Need something to store your goods? Instead of a boring label maker … create something 3-D! You’ll find what you need faster, and your worn-out chest will become newer and be really fun. And there’s no way your neighbors will have something so full of pizzazz and personality. You can use wooden labels to label and store anything in this chest of drawers you like. Create the typography in a contrasting color so it’s easy to read from across the room. 

11. Convert Drawers into a Drop Leaf Desk

12. Decoupage Chest of Drawers with Vintage Birds

Sometimes you don’t need to refurbish your entire dresser to give it a funky upgrade. Adding DIY drawer pulls to your chest of drawers can instantly update your look without requiring you to do a bunch of woodworking or refinishing. Redoing drawer pulls on a dresser is the best way to tie it in better with the rest of the room’s design by incorporating accent colors, patterns, or themes from the room in the drawer pull design. (via Apartment Therapy)
If you want to update your chest of drawers but don’t want to create a dramatic change, this small update can add some pizzazz to your dressers without requiring a whole lot of work or materials. If you want to, you can also use variations of the same patterns to line the inside of the dresser drawers as well for a rich and sophisticated vibe. The greatest thing about this dresser update is that you only see the patterns when the drawers are pulled out, so it’s a welcome pop of pattern and color in the most unexpected of places! (via A Beautiful Mess)

13. DIY Drawer Pulls

14. Chest of Drawers Bathroom Vanity

For another way to use an old chest of drawers elsewhere in the house, check out this DIY dresser kitchen island from Hometalk. Triple dressers are the perfect size to function as an island in long kitchens, adding some much-needed counter space and storage for tight spaces. Giving the chest of drawers a distressed paint job can make it the perfect addition to any rustic farmhouse kitchen design. A chest of drawers provides tons of storage for silverware, dried herbs, or countless other kitchen utensils. (via Hometalk)
If you’ve got children and an old chest of drawers laying around, one funky way to reuse them is to turn the dresser into a children’s play kitchen. This play kitchen project at Arrow Hill Cottage is the perfect way to spark young imaginations while also upcycling a piece of furniture that has outlived its usefulness as clothing storage. An upcycled chest of drawers provides great nooks and crannies to store all of your child’s pretend food, play utensils, and other play kitchen items. (via Arrow Hill Cottage)

15. Chest of Drawers Play Kitchen

To upgrade a chest of drawers in a way that gives it both storage and seating, consider transforming your chest of drawers into a storage bench. While this DIY project requires some moderate carpentry skills, it is still easy enough that most crafters should be able to see it through to the end with a tutorial. Everyone could use more storage in their homes, but the advantage of this piece over a chest of drawers is that it also offers a place to sit and relax. Keep in mind that for this project, you’ll need an oversized dresser to leave enough space to put on the bench.  (via My Repurposed Life)

16. DIY Chest of Drawers Dresser Overlays

This particular chest would be great in a little boys room, but adding a new coat of paint and some sleek stripes is a great idea for any room or anyone! How great would a red chest be with some black or white stripes? Or light pink with pretty yellow stripes? Stripes can add a masculine and sporty flair to any bedroom design, but make sure to draw and paint your stripes carefully so that you don’t end up with wiggly lines. 
If your super crafty and can free-hand something magical …. that’s fabulous. But not everyone is so lucky and stencils work wonders. Stencil on some pretty designs and you’ll create something epic fr your house! Stencils come in an overwhelming number of different designs, so you’re sure to find one that is the perfect pattern for your space. 

17. DIY Chest of Drawers Dresser Kitchen Island

Create something new to match other parts of the house you may be re-decorating or make something that pops and stands out. Take a look at these 20 funky ways to update your chest of drawers today!!

18. Chest of Drawers Milk Paint Accent Color

19. Chest Of Drawers Storage Bench

If you have an old and battered chest of drawers lying around the house that you’re considering kicking to the curb, think twice before you drag it out to the trash. Using this tutorial at The Spruce, you can completely refurbish any older chest of drawers to give it a completely updated look. By adding a fresh coat of paint and some new hardware on the drawer pulls, you can make your old dresser unrecognizable. (via The Spruce)
Decoupage has long been one of the most popular ways to renovate the look of a chest of drawers, and this vintage bird decoupage from Mod Podge Rocks! will add a touch of retro class to any boudoir. While you only need beginner skills to pull off this design, you can go above and beyond by seeking out some decoupage designs of your own to add a personalized touch to the project. Laser-jet printed images are the best material for the transfer images to avoid bleeding.
(via Mod Podge Rocks!)

20. Fabric Lined Dresser Chest of Drawers

If you want to add a metallic accent to your chest of drawers, a perfect way to update it is with some nailhead trim. While this trim can be a little tedious to install, there’s nothing about the installation that is very difficult. This makes it a good DIY project even for beginners who don’t have much experience refurbishing furniture. You can use bright gold or copper nail trim for dark-colored dressers or go with darker nailhead trim for light dressers so that it stands out against the wood. (via Grillo Designs)
Knobs, flowers, stickers and buttons …. adding pretty things brings anything up a notch! Slap on a new coat of paint and add whatever your heart desires. It makes it a little funky, fresh and a whole lot better than before all the visible wear and tear the chest was going through. The asymmetrical vibe of this dresser design gives it a playful vibe. Incorporate collage items that include colors from elsewhere in the room to make the piece look more like part of your overall design. 

To transform your chest of drawers into an entirely different piece of furniture, check out this conversion project from In My Own Style. This is one of the more intensive dresser renovation projects on this list and requires some moderate woodshop skills, but it’s worth the effort to build this one-of-a-kind drop leaf desk. This miniature desk would be the perfect addition to a dorm room or a guest bedroom. (via In My Own Style)