Creating a new piece of furniture by adding open shelving!

A lot of times we come across some super great furniture pieces that have many things broken and in some cases are irreparable. So what do you do when you come across a completely broken drawer or door, or a missing bottom? Well you can certainly create a new drawer or a new bottom, however with the open shelving craze of late there are other options too!

While we have completely replaced bottoms and doors and complete drawers, sometimes we decide that a piece would look better with a shelf instead, or an open cavity! There are so many cute ways to display your decor, or incorporate a woven or metal basket into the cavity instead.

That is what we did with this cute little washstand!

It originally had to doors that swung open for the bottom area. However both doors had been damaged and then poorly fixed previously that we decided there wasn’t a way to redeem them. On the inside, the bottom was also severely damaged and needed to be taken out. While all of these things are replaceable, we opted to just leave the cavity open like we have done previously, that way the new owner can decorate or purchase whatever baskets they wanted!

It was an easy decision and a simple solution to all the problems we faced in fixing this rustic little piece! It was only a matter of taking the doors off, filling the holes from the hinges, and creating the beautiful planked shelf for the bottom!

To create a shelf as the bottom we almost always use a plank style out of 1 inch boards all joined together. We do this mainly because we dislike having to use the table saw or the circular saw to cut out plywood! We almost always have 1 inch boards in our shop and we can handle them much better when working by ourselves.

Sometimes the dimensions of the openings aren’t exactly perfect, so it takes some figuring out what size boards you are going to use and where and sometimes it consists of ripping down a couple of them. To attach we had a bunch of glue and usually screws from the bottom or nails. That always holds wonderfully.

We decided it would look beautiful in red, and painted it with Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in “Tricycle” which is a bold and vibrant colored red. It was sealed with hemp oil which really brings out the vibrancy of the deeper colors. We then distressed it on the edges slightly to keep the rustic feel to the simple piece. Keeping the top and the shelf stained helped to add character to the piece especially since the top was beautiful oak.

And these pieces always turn out great! And are also super unique. Just take a look at some of the other furniture we have changed by creating a shelf to them!

On this “matching” set, we created shelves out of the two top drawers so it would work perfectly for TV boxes and DVD players. 

A Dresser turned into a buffet with planked wooden shelving.

Adding a shelf to a coffee bar or small media stand.

This piece came without any doors on the bottom! It now sits in Kristen’s entryway and holds her daughters books and stuffed animals in the baskets!