DIY Media Cabinet from a Dresser

Today’s post is a super fun one! Have you ever thought about repurposing furniture? Years ago, I showed you how to paint without brush strokes on furniture and turned it into this into this…

Welp, we’ve done it again! This same dresser is getting yet another new life. This six-foot dresser took up a lot of floor space in our son’s room. So, it was replaced when we were gifted an old but still useable tall chest of drawers.

But what to do with the old dresser? It sat for quite a time in the basement until I had the idea to turn it into the media console for under the TV. However, the style wasn’t what we envision for our basement at all. Since we already built the dark painted kitchen cabinets, it was pretty easy to design this to match those.

Video Step-by-Step

I recorded a video of us with all of the steps of us transforming this from boring white to a traditional media cabinet if you would rather watch a video than scroll through the steps below.

Gutting and Building

First things first – a complete gut. There was no bottom to this and only a very thin, warped backing board so we replaced those with plywood.

We added those back in with sturdy replacements.

At the time, I hadn’t planned on staining the inside. I honestly thought I would paint everything the same color, inside and out. Truthfully, if I had thought of this, I would have used better grade plywood. There are some knots and two different types of wood, although I color matched them pretty close.

We had just a little bit of leftover walnut from an old bed project, so we cut it up into strips. They were glued and tacked on with a nail gun to the fronts of the plywood. This was so we could make the edges appear more finished, like a veneer.

This is it while I am prepping it for staining and painting. I was really happy with the doors in particular because we built and matched them to the doors in the charcoal grey cabinets that we built for the wet bar.

When we were originally planning this out, I thought we would paint everything, inside and out. This caused a few boo-boos. If I had to do this again, I would have selected better plywood without knots and used the same type of wood throughout. Instead, I got the idea to stain the interior from my previous painted entertainment center makeover. I had to match the walnut and the plywood in color by custom mixing some stains together.

I had previously filled the nail holes before I changed my mind about painting it. The thing is that wood filler doesn’t stain as well as wood. What I would have done differently is that I would have stained some wood dust and mixed that with glue to plug the holes.

Since that wasn’t an option, I used a tiny paint brush to add a few coats of stain to make them as disappear as much as possible. It’s pretty good, but they aren’t seamless.

The main function of this media console was to give us good storage, hide the cords, and blend seamlessly with the walls so that it looks like a built in. It’s not meant to be a statement piece, but wow, it really helps ground the room to come together and hits all of our needs!

Originally, I thought about painting it black, but with the oversized, boxy TV already anchoring that wall, it felt like too much. I love the warmth and contrast of the stained wood. The glass doors give it a clean, intentional look-like it was always meant to be there.

And, at Christmas time, I absolutely love how the lights play off the glass. It’s double the twinkle!