Found this Antique Bureau by the side of the road in London. It was dirty, wet with all the drawers wedged shut. After a lot of sanding and furniture wax I managed to get it to look like this:
The main problem still had to be fixed though. The compartments inside the bureau were completely broken which had resulted in a hole in the back that went down into the drawers underneath:
Not really having the skills to build something from scratch I was lucky enough to find the Moppe drawers on the IKEA website, the height was almost perfect and the width of two almost filled the gap.
I created the inner unit by taking the two Moppe drawer sets and used wood glue to attach them to a plywood base, I also attached a piece of ply to the back between the two sets of drawers to make an additional central compartment:
I turned the drawers around, stained them the same colour as the bureau and attached antique style handles that sort of matched the feel of the bureau:
Now all i needed to do was attach the unit to the inside of the bureau, I screwed it into the top to ensure that the unit could be removed at a later date without leaving any noticeable damage to the bureau:
Job done! Absolutely amazed by the results and you would hardly realise that the units were bought from IKEA … although I generally tell everyone!
~ Timothy Jeffreys