I saw a post on Pinterest about turning an old entertainment center into a kitchen for a child and it was adorable! My youngest two play with the kitchen from when the 16-year-old was little and it’s huge… so we certainly didn’t need another one. What we DID need was a dress up closet to store Miss Gracie’s 25 dress up Princess gowns and Jack’s Buzz Lightyear and Elmo costumes and ALL the hats and accessories….
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I could find an entertainment center for cheap, right? Not so fast. Not as easy as I thought it would be. In this area, people are mistaken about what their cast-offs are worth. No one buys CRT monitors anymore. Most of the entertainment centers made solidly enough were priced at over $150… Ummm, no.
I found something that was masonite for $25, then I changed my mind. The lady told me she’d give it to me for free if I would just come get it.. Free is right up my alley so I went.
Not so bad… what you can’t see is that the doors are barely staying together they’re so flimsy. I thought it would be great to be able to shut the doors to the mess… plans change and I decided it wasn’t worth the time or effort to try to mend them and pulled them off. (ok, well I unscrewed the hinges and took them off)
You can kind of see the condition on the bottom left door. Seeing the back you can also get a glimpse of how flimsy the composition is. This is NOT a quality piece of furniture, it was fine for what I wanted to do with it, let’s just say the odds of it being around by the time any grandchildren come along are fairly slim though.
It also had a “fabulous” tape trail all around the back edge. I still can’t figure out why. It wasn’t to hold any doors closed based on position… here are the photos of that:
Just fantastic, right? It was SO fun to scrape that off… but I did.
Then I gave it a quick coat of Paint in a deep blue. I like it, it’s a cobalt color and Jack’s current favorite color is orange. It would blend well with that since I didn’t want this to be too girl-y.
I grabbed a closet bar left over from my closet re-do and picked up some new attachment pieces at the hardware store (since I used the leftover ones from the closet on Abbie’s new clothes bar). I eyeballed the rod and used a hanger to make sure it wasn’t too far back or too far forward and screwed it in. Then I gave it a once over with the paint.
I had purchased a huge sheet of beadboard (is that what it’s called?) at the hardware store too and it didn’t fit into my van (that was comical). Luckily, as my children were melting down, a friend walked out the door with her husband and he offered to head back in and have them cut it for me (Score! one less thing for me to do later…). So with all my pieces, I headed home.
I painted the back piece Orange and I waxed everything (I don’t recommend wax at all now, but that’s a post for another day) . I considered a second coat but the lazy side of me won, and I didn’t do it.
So after putting it all together, I essentially ended up with this:
Not bad, but I thought it needed a bit more. I added a mirror and some drawer pulls to the sides to give it some more storage space for accessories:
So once I hung everything up, it looks like this:
Not too shabby… there are a few things I would do differently next time I think. I AM pleased with this dress up closet and the little ones are playing more and even putting their costumes away a little better now! I think they like being able to see what they have and somehow hooks are fun. Whatever it takes….
What do you think?
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14 Comments
coolmama72
September 11, 2012 at 11:16 PMThat looks great! Mine isn’t tall enough for a full mirror (actually I’m not totally sure about that – but even it if it, the way I have the closet bar prevents anything being attached along the side). My kids keep taking their dress up clothes out and then not hanging them back up. Makes me nuts!!!!!
scottiev
September 11, 2012 at 11:21 PMthanks! Gracie I think only really ever wants one or two of the dresses she has so I think the others were thrown all over the place as she searched for the “good” ones. Jack just wanted to find his stuff. It was always getting stuffed to the bottom of the bin. We’ll see how long this lasts.. it’s been a week though and so far so good. I;m surprised because I actually expected it to be much worse mess wise. (Whew)
coolmama72
September 11, 2012 at 11:28 PMI think it’s funny (ironic?) that your kids are Gracie and Jack. My younger two are Natalie Grace (sometimes I call her Natty Grace) and Jack. 🙂
scottiev
September 11, 2012 at 11:31 PMThat is funny! There is a pin I saw on Pinterest about decorating rocks (I think) there were examples with letters and pictures on them and the only two names in the picture were Gracie and Jack. I thought that was kind of cool… maybe it was Grace and Jack… i’ll have to go look now…
scottiev
September 11, 2012 at 11:39 PMIt was Gracie- how fun! Set it as the cover on my So Cool! board… silly, I know. 🙂
Stacie
September 12, 2012 at 8:44 AMIts so cute!!!!!!!!!! I need your advice on a desk I am getting for the kids, its laminate and i want to paint it. Should i do chalboard paint?. And what is the wax stuff you use?
scottiev
September 12, 2012 at 9:39 AMThank you and I am happy to help you. Let me know when. I am good all day today and tomorrow afternoon or Friday.
Stacie
September 12, 2012 at 12:17 PMCall me any time, I am here. Tonight i have back to school night at middle school and tomorrow soccer. How is Friday?
Victoria Elizabeth Barnes
September 12, 2012 at 4:26 PMCompletely adorable! Great project…especially for free. Or, mostly free… once you add up time/supplies, it’s never quite as free as you thought!
scottiev
September 12, 2012 at 9:00 PMVictoria- right? Not too bad on this one though.. I think it was under $50 or so.. which works for me. I still have enough paint to use for something else… probably that dresser.
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Fredro
September 20, 2019 at 5:49 AMNice post!
Oren
November 19, 2019 at 6:29 AMYou did a wonderful job! This post sound very wonderful.