New Life for Old Wardrobe
Don showed how to transform an old, 1930s wardrobe into a lovely, modern piece of furniture.
Out with the old
These days, wardrobes are unwanted, because modern bedrooms have built-in robes. Built-ins are much better than the old wardrobes – they’re well designed modular units with more hanging and storage space. In fact, the old wardrobes won’t be back, and most of them end up being thrown out with the council clean up, chopped up for timber or used for firewood. Even Don’s beautiful silky oak wardrobe with decorative inlay wouldn’t fetch more than about $50 if you tried to sell it at the local antique shop. Rather than throwing the old wardrobe out, Don decided to turn it into something that’s fabulous and yet dirt cheap.
Good as new
Don started by removing the doors, top and back. Next, he did some calculations to work out how deep he wanted the new storage unit to be. Once the calculations were done, Don used a fine-toothed saw to cut the back off the wardrobe, so that he was left with a narrow piece of furniture. Finally he replaced the back and top, strengthened all the joints and added some 150mm melamine shelving. (Tip: Don attached the frame securely to a wall stud to ensure that the unit didn’t overbalance.) The unit was now ready to store CDs, DVDs, videos, books and trinkets. For less than $200, the wardrobe had been transformed into a thin, funky piece of furniture with an entirely new life.