Numbered Shoe Dresser

This started off as a project for spring break and ended up taking over two months to finish up (and it's still not completely finished... the third drawer needs to be poly'ed still)! I seriously overestimated how hard it would be to make everything fit right and dh had to help out some making things fit together, the dowel pins and the notches to make the drawers tip out and he made the stencil for the numbers but I pretty much did the rest myself. With a handsaw and a drill. That's it. We didn't have any other power tools at the time. If we had the proper power tools, a babysitter for the weekend and nothing else to do but work on it, I think it could be done in a weekend.

I needed something to fill the awkward narrow space by the door and we needed shoe storage so I modified Ana's plan to make it narrower and added an extra drawer. I was orginally going to put feet on it like the plans call for but we decided we liked it better without. We used a thrift store belt for the drawer catches that keep it from tipping all the way out. It is braced to the studs in the wall with corner braces. Everyone comments on it when they see it and we've had several people ask if we could make them one!

Built from Plan(s)
Estimated Cost
$60
Estimated Time Investment
Weekend Project (10-20 Hours)
Finish Used
MiniWax Stain - Special Walnut (drawers)
Glidden paint - French Grey (frame)
Glidden paint - Onyx Black (numbers)
MinWax Fast Drying Polyurathane

I had a blast beating the drawers with screwdrivers, hammers, chisels and sandpaper. Then I stained them, making sure to soak the stain into the marks I had made. I made printouts of the numbers I wanted and dh made stencils for me with painter's tape and a razor blade. After the numbers dried I went at them with sandpaper and then stained again. Then poly'ed the drawers inside and out. I didn't stain the inside of the drawers mostly because I was using leftover stain and wanted to make sure I had enough to do the outside but didn't really care about the inside.
Recommended Skill Level
Intermediate