I have wanted to create the illusion of a stack of old-fashioned suitcases out of a dresser for years now. And I finally did it! I originally wanted to do it with my old dresser, but I kept putting it off because my old dresser had a lot of varnish on it and a lot of nooks and crannies and I knew it was going to be a beast to strip and clean. I ultimately decided to sell that dresser and then find one that would work for my vision!

My new dresser was solid and painted a nice white. I was going to leave the “body” of the dresser white, but I couldn’t help myself and started sanding it off. I decided to stain it with my favorite stain (Olympic brand custom color “Cinder”). I was unable to get some of the paint out…I tried everything! Sander, hand sanding, blocks, chemicals, even scraping it with planes. I ultimately decided to do the best and then stain - perhaps the white in the cracks would give it that “aged” look? * fingers crossed *

I removed the handles from the drawers and filled the holes with wood filler. Once the filler was dry, I lightly sanded the front of the drawers (I wasn’t worried about removing the white paint), and got ready for the fun stuff.

The dresser front and sides was easy to stain and looked great - it really brought out the grains of the wood! The white paint that I couldn’t get out didn’t take away from the overall look. However, the top, was looking awful…blotchy and ugly. :(

See? Ugly! I tried sanding it again and smoothing out the blotches…it didn’t work. I finally just brushed on my stain and left it on for a while, hoping the “grains” I created in brushing it on would help hide the blotches. I also knew that most people wouldn’t see it and I would have things on top to hide it. Although the blotches are still visible, my attempted fix was better than the first stain!

I purchased several pieces of hardware for my “suitcases” - some handles and latches. I loved these suitcase handles (2 pair) and a pack of 4 retro leather handles. As for hardware, I got a set of bronze latches and a package of upholstery tacks. With a fresh Sharpie, I was ready to go!

First, I painted each drawer a different color. I used colors I had in my garage from other projects. Then I laid out my hardware pieces to test out the layout. I didn’t want them to all be identical, so I played with different layouts of the latches and handles. Once settling on the layout, I began working on customizing each suitcase.

For the first suitcase, I painted a wide strap in cream and then dry-brushed some blue into the cream. For these paints, I just used acrylics that I had on hand. I used a long ruler to draw a line as the opening of the suitcase, and then screwed the latches as if they would open the suitcase. I put some cute dash marks as embellishments - you can see the difference it made in the one picture where I had done the dashes on one but not on the other!

To create the straight lines, I used blue painters tape and then painted between them. The wood was pretty hard, so I had to drill pilot holes for each latch as well as the upholstery tacks. For the suitcase with the leather straps, I drew the suitcase opening first and then painted the “leather” as if it was holding the suitcase together.

The final embellishment I made was to create some “luggage tags/stickers”. Although my bedroom is a Hogwarts theme, I didn’t want to go overboard with it, and instead made some stickers that were subtle and you couldn’t see the words without looking closer. If you would like a copy of the two stickers, I put the images on a PDF for easy download. Please do not sell these, but I’m offering them for your personal use.

I love how it turned out! Now, it’s a chest of suitcases and a place to show off the illustrated editions of the Harry Potter books as they come out as well as my necklaces. I bought this tree necklace holder - my nod to the Whomping Willow.

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