teaching an old dresser new tricks.

May 8, 2014

leather drawer pulls Here’s a little lesson in teaching an old dog new tricks. Well, an old dresser anyway.

My mom and dad helped us do a furniture swap a few weeks ago. They brought us this changing table from my sister Cait’s house and delivered to them a new one to take its place.

The dresser is the same one that my parents used with me and my three sisters and for the past year it’s been home base for a certain little East Village nephew. Now it’s time for it to get some action from a Junebug and his or her cloth-diapering-maverick parents (we’re on a confidence-boosting campaign over here).

I’ll admit that my sentimentality for old furniture has its limits. I’d really rather the angles were a bit less curlicued and I couldn’t abide by the brass handles. I also didn’t want to spend a lot of time or money on an update.

Enter the humble roll of flat lace leather.

For less than 10 dollars and in under 30 minutes, I made 8 leather dresser drawer pulls. The space between the two holes was a perplexing 2 and 5/8 inches, so going the homemade route was easier than redrilling to fit a standard 3-inch pull.
leather drawer pulls For this dresser, 10-inch strips of leather were long enough to make a pull that was a comfortable 1.5 inches away from the dresser with room enough to tie knots. leather drawer pulls To make each pull, I tied three lengths of lace together in a knot, threaded it through one hole (starting from the inside) and made a simple braid. leather drawer pulls Then I threaded the remaining end back into the drawer and made another knot to secure the handle. leather drawer pulls I tired my best to keep the width standard so that the dresser didn’t end up with pulls of varying depths. leather drawer pulls Pretty close to even, I’d say. leather drawer pulls Et voila. An old dresser made newish again.

Details about the paint choice here. More on painting furniture right here.

{Chemical-free cotton changing table pad with washable covers courtesy of my hard-working mama—otherwise known as grammy.}

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13 Comments

  • Reply Karen - Quilts...etc. May 8, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    wow, I'm impressed — cloth diapers I thought those went out the window after I had my little ones – I think I was some of the last of my generation to use them and yes that has been a long time now considering my little ones are 38 & 41

  • Reply Elizabeth May 8, 2014 at 12:23 pm

    Don't sweat the cloth diapers. We've been cloth diapering our 18 month-old since his wee bum was big enough for his diapers (we use BumGenius all-in-ones and he didn't grow into them until he was about 6 weeks old) and we still love it. We've even converted the skeptics (grandparents, great-aunts and -uncles…). You've got this!

    • Reply Erin May 8, 2014 at 12:28 pm

      Thanks! Not actually worried about the cloth diapers, just on a general newbie parent confidence-building kick ;)!

  • Reply Kendall May 8, 2014 at 1:50 pm

    Cloth diapers are the best. I used to babysit a baby who had them and they were so simple.

  • Reply DontBlameTheKids May 8, 2014 at 5:13 pm

    I cloth diaper. It's super easy, especially if you use pocket diapers are all in ones. Have you ever read Amalah's blog? She has tons of cloth diaper info.

  • Reply Kari May 8, 2014 at 7:47 pm

    Those dresser pulls are genius! We used cloth diapers till my son developed an allergy to the diaper pins. I wish they'd had the velcro kind when my kids were little.

  • Reply Sophie May 8, 2014 at 7:53 pm

    This is so pretty :))

  • Reply VioletDaffodils May 8, 2014 at 10:44 pm

    Such a cute idea! love it 😀

    http://www.violetdaffodils.blogspot.co.uk
    xx

  • Reply laurab May 8, 2014 at 11:47 pm

    BEST IDEA EVER!!!!! Going to do tonight!

  • Reply Diana May 9, 2014 at 12:12 am

    This is brilliant!

  • Reply Amanda May 9, 2014 at 3:06 am

    These pulls are gorgeous!

  • Reply Sophia moreno-bunge May 12, 2014 at 3:48 am

    Genius idea!!! I looove it!

  • Reply Clemsy May May 16, 2014 at 9:40 am

    The dresser looks so lovely and so special that has been passed along the family. The leather pulls look so sweet too, what a great idea.

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