I made a dresser

After my first test pieces this dresser went pretty smoothly and much faster. Part of that was the joinery was simpler, and part of it is I had all the tools and design finished before I started. I based my design on this tutorial then modified it to match my own aesthetic. 

We have a Black and Decker Matrix power tool which allows the user to buy different attachments to use it as different tools. We have the circle saw attachment but it's a pretty small blade and not adjustable so it's not great for ripping down big sheets of plywood. We have a table saw but it requires two people to cut a full sheet of plywood because the sheet is so big and our table saw is a small job site saw.  So I bought myself a new 7 1/4 in circle saw from Harbor Freight (my new favorite store 😍) so I could cut down the big sheets by myself with greater ease on the work table. It worked great. I rough cut pieces a little bigger with the circle saw then cut them precisely to size on the table saw. 

I used pocket holes throughout but we only have the tiny Kreg pocket hole jig which takes a little more attention to set up precisely. To make things easier I built this little jig to cut all the holes for my drawer boxes faster and uniformly. It worked great too.

I lined the drawer bottoms with vinyl contact paper to make them easier to clean. My drawers are a little deeper than the width of the paper so a little bit of drawer bottom plywood shows but I don't really care. I overlayed the drawer faces instead of inset like the inspiration tutorial which made aligning the drawer slides simpler. I had trouble with getting the slides in the right spot on the nightstand. Overlayed faces also gave me almost another inch of drawer depth. 

I decided to edge band most of the exposed plywood edges with iron-on veneer because I think furniture looks too busy when they are all exposed, but I do like a little of it for visual interest so I left the edges of the drawers exposed. I used the same stain and sealer as the nightstand.

Lots of staining

I cut the legs out of oak like the nightstand. A friend drilled the pilot holes with a drill press for me and then I inserted the hangar bolts which screw into t-nuts in the base of the dresser.

Legs are on!

I made the drawer pulls out of leather we already had. I liked the green best but it was a little thin and floppy so I glued it to the natural colored leather which was thicker and more rigid. I used pocket hole screws to attach them to the faces because I liked how they looked. 

Those drawer pulls are on point

Overall I'm really happy with the whole piece. It's not perfect but it's just right for me :).

All done and in its new home!