Now begins a series of posts about creating the nursery- a project that's been underway for about 8 months now. When we found out that we were expecting, I started researching beautiful nurseries on Pinterest. My husband started researching life insurance. We're a good match.

The first thing we had to do was get rid of all the stuff that was in the future nursery - no small task. There was mountains of books on a too-big bookshelf, an old desktop computer and computer desk, a closet full of miscellaneous clothes, and all of my crafting and sewing supplies. Believing that there's a "place for everything", I spent many months seeing these items to the right charities, friends and Kijiji ads. We got rid of a tonne of stuff and it felt great.

With the room empty and repainted, it was time to start from scratch. Given that it's a pretty small room in a compact house, it was important that we chose things carefully. That said, I fell in love with this crib from Dwell and when it went on sale over Christmastime, I made my first nursery purchase. It was a splurge, for certain, but unless our kid gnaws on it, I think it will have good resale value.

However, I drew the line at purchasing the matching dressers from Dwell, thinking that I could find something second-hand to match. While describing what I was looking for, my wonderful friend Susan mentioned that she had seen something similar at a local thrift shop. I picked up these little beauties at Village Green - $200 for the pair.

I'd seen some neat posts Pinterest for lining drawers with fabric and decided to give it a whirl on the dressers to give them a new life.

To start, I cut each of my drawer pieces roughly to size. Once the pieces were cut, I started looking around for fabric stiffener, but had no luck. That's when my Mom mentioned that you can make fabric stiffener the old fashioned way - with household ingredients!

Here's the recipe I found for a non-permanent hard finish.

Combine 1/4 c. cornstarch and 1 1/2 cup cold water, mix until smooth. Cook over medium heat until thickened and translucent. Cool before using.

This kinda worked. I let it cool completely and found out that it hardened to a jelly-like substance. I proceeded to re-heat the jelly mixture and added more water as it warmed up. It ended up being a lumpy, watery, jelly consistency (gross!) I threw caution to the crafting wind and decided to see what would happen if I used it anyways. I started dipping my fabric pieces into the goop.

The instructions then say to "gently squeeze out excess solution being care not to twist or wring the piece, then blot excess starch from fabric using a clean cloth or paper towels. Shape according to pattern instructions."


There was a lot of goop on the fabric, so I don't know how "gently" I squeezed it out, but I got out as much as I could. Because I was working with large pieces, I laid each piece out on an old towel and rolled them up in that. Then I let the rolls dry overnight.

The next morning, the fabric was still slightly damp, which was perfect, as I wanted to be able to iron it before it dried completely. I laid it on an old pillow case so as not to get my ironing board all covered in starchiness.

The ironing helped to dry the fabric the rest of the way, and then I stood back in wonderment: this actually worked! The fabric was as stiff as a piece of lighweight cardstock. Very cool!

Next, I pre-cut my fabric so that it would line the bottom and sides of the drawers. To do this, I made a template out of pattern paper and then traced that onto the fabric. The template for something like this is essentially the rectangular size of the drawer with a square taken out of each corner so that the fabric meets instead of overlaps.

From there, it was a process of fitting each piece snugly to a drawer and then holding it in place while I glued it down. I used large bull clips to hold each side in place and then lifted one side at a time to run a bead of super tacky craft glue along the seams and along the top edge of the fabric. After a little final smoothing of the fabric, I set the drawers to dry.

I know that drawers are usually full and generally closed, but I love knowing that this happy fabric surprise is waiting inside!

Baby drawers for baby things.