From Dresser to Banquette

So I bought this dresser from an unclaimed freight place.... YEARS ago. I always had the intention of adding a top... Or painting it... Or something (anything!) because it looked pretty rough. Rough is an understatement, but I saw potential because it is a very solid and very well made piece of furniture (with the exception of the top... I have no clue what ever happened to that. It was looong gone before I came onto the scene...). After debating for quite some time I finally decided that I was going to create a banquette to sit at my kitchen table. In all my excitement to dig in I forgot to take a picture of the actual before, but in the following pic you can get a basic idea of what I was working with.

Just picture the one with a wood "top" stacked on top of the other and that's all the dresser consisted of. It ended up that the two were held together by bolts. After removing those they came apart with no problem.

 Once I reconfigured the unit how I wanted it (side-by-side) I drilled 3/8" holes in the left side of one and the right side of the other and fed through bolts that would ensure that the banquette was one solid piece of furniture. I then thoroughly sanded the unit and applied a coat of Valspar paint in Ultra White. I decided that I would use some of the leftover paintable wallpaper from my backsplash (blog post to follow!) to cover the drawers. Unfortunately I had just enough to cover two of the drawers. I adhered the wallpaper with Mod Podge.

My next step was the top. I was originally going  to paint it white, but after being forced to purchase stain grade quality wood at Lowes, I decided I was gonna get my money's worth and stain it. Fortunately I had some leftover poly and stain so there was no added expense!

I am absolutely over the moon with how it came out!