Nothing quite messes with the aesthetic of a carefully curated workspace like a big, bulky printer erupting with a mass of cable spaghetti. Many dwellers decide to hide them in spare closets, but what do you do when your office is a multi-purpose space, like a bedroom? Take a cue from Pamela and hide it inside an IKEA dresser drawer!
Since Pamela's office area is inside her master bedroom, she decided that her boxy white wireless printer needed to find a home where it could be tucked away from her modern decor. After one look at her IKEA Hemmes' empty dresser drawers, a clever DIY project was born.
By removing the front panel of one of her dresser's bottom drawers and re-attaching it with hardware store hinges, Pamela was able to create a well-functioning printer cubby that hides away inside her bedroom furniture unnoticed. The printer's power cord sneaks out from a hole drilled in the back of the drawer.
If you want to check out details from the whole project (and plenty more photos), check out Pamela's blog, PB&J Stories.
(Images: PB&J Stories)
Which Wall Color Gives the Best Sleep?
Ana Creates a Community at Home
Good Food to Share 
The Big Book of Small, Cool Spaces 
Apartment Therapy Presents 
The Eight-Step Home Cure 
Z2 iPod Dock and Wi...
Soda Recipe: Homemade Ginger Ale
Seriously, guys, are you in my mind??? I've been looking all week for this! I just bought a gorgeous dresser that I want to convert to a TV stand, and this is perfect for hiding the cable box and gaming consoles. Thank you!!!
Great idea! I've actually thought about doing this before. Nice to see it looks pretty easy.
The drawer lining is a sweet touch, too.
thenestinggame.com
Clever :)
very, VERY clever!
I so needed this because I knew it could be done somehow but didn't know the mechanics of it. Now I'll buy those matching dressers, finish them as I like, and turn them respectively into the TV stand and dining room bar for which I've been hunting like a mad woman. THANK YOU for highlighting this because I wouldn't have seen it otherwise (PB&J's new to me).
genius!
Oh so great to see this! I have been planning to do something just like this to hide my DVD player and now I can follow a tutorial.
I don't know what kind of drawer glides are on the Hemmes dresser, but replacing them with full extension glides (available at Lowes) would make a big difference. I recently re-jiggered a cabinet for our printer, and if I hadn't used full extension glides, it would have been impossible to open the top of the printer to get to the copier.
MSTAYLORLAUREN; be careful with tucking DVD/Bluray players and game consoles (especially) into poorly ventilated, tight storage areas. My Wii was toasted because of the lack of proper ventilation in my TV stand.
I actually had this, a long time ago. In my previous house, I used a drawer in an old dresser (on which the TV sat) to house the VCR/DVD unit. Maybe it was only VCR back then. The dresser was a curb find, an old piece and one of those that was a bit more substantially built that modern furniture. I don't remember the reason why I could not have the VCR sitting on top (maybe the TV ate all the space) but my neighbour suggested this and he built it for me (I think the drawer had built with dove tailing but i am not sure).
Instead of single hinges we used a piano hinge (the long piece that you cut to the desired size) - he said go get a piano hinge, so I did. We did not use the hardware that prevents the front of the drawer to open more then 90 degrees (it is visible in the last picture - I have no idea what to it's called in English - the thingy that attached to the side of the drawer on one end and to the front of the drawer on the other end) and it was just fine.
Because it was just a VCR or a DVD I did not need to pull the drawer out as it is necessary with a printer - I just needed to be able the remote control to work with it.
I never had a problem with it overheating like Aimsly said but it probably something worth considering.
Thumbs up!
Great post and right on time. We are creating an office cove in our living room right now and our huge printer/scanner has been messing up my design flow. Love AT!
Great idea!
Very good idea! There's actually a kind of hinge that would probably suit this kind of use better, they're usually called something like "overlay," "European," or "cabinet" hinges that serve both as a hinge and essentially as a stopper so that it smoothly slides from closed to a flat 180 degrees. I wanted drawers like this before, I became very familiar with Home Depot's hinge options ;)
Thanks for the advice, Aimsley!
I love this idea - I'm saddled with ugly electronics spilling all over my dining room desk area and this give me an idea on how to camoflauge some of it. Very useful !
If you want to hide equipment that overheats easily (bluray players, etc) and your'e reasonably handy, one way to install them safely in an enclosed space is to install small fans going out the back or sides.
Weirdly enough, some of the best tutorials for installing fans in cupboards or cabinets are... *ahem* weed growers, who apparently use them to hide their single weed plant in their dorm room.
great post and great comments/feedback from:
-PBSTEELE - on using full extension glides
-CANADIAN MANGO - on using a piano hinge
-AIMSLY - on providing adequate ventilation if using for gaming console/DVD/Blu-ray players.
I'm trying to convert a dresser into a media console and have been looking for ideas on how to convert the drawer such that the drawer front opens or drops down. when you need to access the DVD player and closes when you're done. A lot of the converted dressers that I've seen were mostly taking the whole drawer out and simply making the space (where the drawer sat) into shelves. So far, after endless searching on the web, this is the second one I've seen where the drawer was not taken off.
With this simple solution, I'm hoping to finish my dresser (after sanding it down and applying polyurethane on all 7 ft+ plus of it) sooner.
BTW, as indicated above, AIMSLY, raised a good point about ventilation. If the drawer is pulled out and the drawer front kept open while using the DVD player, I'm thinking that that's more than adequate ventilation.
Poof! My mind has been blown!