Oh my goodness, this project was awesome. Let me show you how to DIY a dresser (or chest of drawers) into two nightstands. Save money by repurposing what you have, and make it into what you need.

I wanted JJ to have a nightstand on each side of her bed,  but she  really didn’t have the room for two nightstands with this dresser in her room. To be honest she didn’t even need this dresser because she has a huge closet with most of her clothes already in it. So, I thought what if we could turn this dresser into two separate nightstands… And it actually worked!

This was JJ’s chest of drawers before I did anything to it.

I didn’t want to buy 2 nightstands and move her chest of drawers because her room just isn’t big enough. I didn’t want to sell her dresser either because my grandparents bought this for her a couple years ago and I still saw potential in it. I also wanted to give her something functional without losing the drawer space for her clothes. She always pulled up a desk chair to put her belongings on before she went to bed (her iPad, glass of water, books, etc…) so I know she needed a nightstand. Could I cut this dresser in half and make 2 separate nightstands out of it? If I do this, it’s gotta be functional and it’s gotta be aesthetically pleasing.

Scott thought I was crazy. “Why do you want to cut this dresser in half and make two nightstands? What’s the purpose? I don’t think that’s a good idea. What if you ruin it?“

“Scott. Just believe in my vision, I kept trying to reassure him it’ll work.” Aaaaand, because I’m always a little hesitant, I said, “if it doesn’t work, we’ll just have to get some inexpensive used nightstands and I’ll refurbish them”. Inside I’m just like “please help me do this, cuz I know it’ll work!!” He hesitantly agreed but at this point he’s learning to let me do my own thing and have faith in my visions – no matter how crazy they seem.

At this point I set the camera on the tripod and recorded as we went along. I’m horrible at progress photos because I get so involved in a project and forget to take them.

This is what they looked like after they were built.

+ this is what they looked like after I mirrored them out.

if you already have your nightstands and you want to make your own DIY Mirrored Nightstands, I’m going to show you how I did that as well. Click here if you want to learn how to mirror out any sort of furniture.

I started off by removing the top of the dresser with a mallet and I removed the staples with an angle grinder. The dresser had 5 drawers. So because we are cutting the dresser in half, we are getting rid of one of the drawers. That way, we will have 2 nightstands, each with 2 drawers.

 Scott measured the top of the drawer to the top of – what will be – the top of nightstand #1.

Then, he measured and marked the same height as nightstand #1. Marking from the top of the drawer to – what will be – the top of nightstand #2. He measured and marked on both sides so that he can cut cut it straight across. 

Then we removed the back piece of the dresser with a mallet.

We measured (once again) and marked the sides of – what will be – the nightstand to ensure a straight cut.

Here is a picture of the progress. The left nightstand is after cutting the bottom part of the dresser. I only know this because of the design on the bottom- which we will get to in more details, later. I used what was the top of the dresser to set it on top of the nightstand to make sure I liked it. I have not secured that yet.

Here is another progress pic after the second nightstand was cut to size. Notice the difference on the bottom designs. I took the top off of the left nightstand and set it on top of the right one to make sure they were even and that I liked how it looked.

Here is another progress picture, just showing you what they look like without the top. I was so happy with how these nightstands were coming together at this point! We had to make a run to Lowe’s to get some more wood. We weren’t going to use the top of the old dresser. We were going to get new wood for the tops and wood for the bottom, so they can be matching.

After looking at several different options, we ended up getting this. This is Craft Master’s Lodgepole Pine. It’s 96″ long so it will be large enough for the tops of both nightstands and for the bottom decorative accents.

The original bottom part of the dresser had a support bracket on the back (the right side, that I’m pointing to). But notice how the nightstand on the left side has no support bracket on the back.

We flipped the nightstands upside down to work on the bracing + support. Scott just used some scrap wood leftover from the tops of the nightstands to make it extra secure. He glued and screwed these wood pieces together.

Once the glue was dried, we flipped them upright and this was the front of the nightstands. We removed the original decorative wood piece from the bottom of the dresser. This way both nightstands could be identical.

Here is what it looked like after securing the bottom decorative pieces.

I used wood glue to glue this wood trim around – what will be – the top of my nightstands.

Then, we glued the straight rectangular cut pieces (with the wood accent trim) to the nightstands. And, this is how I turned my dresser into 2 nightstands.

I decided to mirror out these nightstands and you can check out the tutorial here: DIY Mirrored Nightstands On a Budget

Absolutely LOVE how these turned out. It was worth every penny saved and all the time, effort, and love put into these. Check out the DIY Mirrored Nightstands tutorial here.