{Desk Build: The Big Reveal}

The desk has been planned, built, painted, stained and assembled and is back in our office.  We couldn't afford to buy all the lumber at once to do everything we wanted so it doesn't have a back yet, or doors, or upper shelves (for the most part).  There aren't a lot of accessories yet either, so it's pretty plain looking, but man is it functional!  I've already been using it already for sewing and crafting and I love not having to carry all my materials across the house to the dining room.  Plus, it's an easy clean up to put everything back.

This build was inspired by Ana's desk plans over at Knock Off Wood.  I LOVE this website!  There are a ton of inspiring stories from women picking up their husband's power tools! And for the record, this was the first time I used a power drill!  It felt pretty good. :)

I know you've already seen it, but here's the before:

My Mister and I are renting this old house while I'm in school and we've done a lot of work to fix it up.  We've painted every room with the exception of this one because it is the only room with real wood paneling. We've removed wall paper, painted cabinets, changed out faucets... lots of stuff.  This room is where we really do most of our living though because it's where our computers are.  It's an odd room that has two doors in to it!  The door you're looking at is one of three doors to the bedroom, so we didn't really need it except for air circulation.

The fireplace mantle is beautiful, but as you can tell from the construction paper replica, it's totally not functional at all.  I think maybe if this were my house the fireplace would take precedent over a desk, but since it isn't my house I don't have the option of fixing it.  This whole wall of our small office was monopolized by the boarded up fireplace and a superfluous door.  hehe We definitely needed more function in here.

Now, that side of the room looks like this!

My new sewing machine too! Check it out!

Mr. Pie's side for painting his miniatures

I altered Ana's plans quite a bit.  The bases are built with OSB and 1x2's for trim. They are 20" x 20" to maximize on storage space.  Eventually these will have doors on them so it's not all open storage.  I also made every base the same because when we move I want this unit to be as flexible as possible.  There are two boards for the top, both are 24" wide by 60" long to make a total of 10 feet of working space.  We chose stain grade pine boards because they came from Lowes at 24" wide and we didn't have to worry about piecing together 1 x 12 boards and having a seam down the middle of the desk horizontally.  As a bonus, one of the boards we used was pretty damaged from being on the shelf too long, crunched at one end and cracking a little in the middle.  We had to trim off 12" anyway so the crunch was gone, but we stained the board with the crack right in it.  They gave us half off that one, so we'll keep an eye on it and replace it later if necessary.

The shelving on Mr. Pie's side of the desk was made out of the left over osb that didn't get used for the base units.  These were the only pieces that Lowe's didn't cut for us!  They did ALL the rest of the cutting for free! We went in on a Monday night and they were more than willing to spend some time with us on their huge rip saw.  Truthfully, we could have found plywood cheap at the Restore and saved ourselves about $25 per sheet but without a way to cut it or to transport home the huge sheets, it just wasn't worth it.  Lowes was a huge huge help.

Price Break Down:

2 -  4' x 8' OSB, cut to size
3 -  2" x 8' trim
2 -  2' x 6' stain grade pine (one half off for damage)
stain
1 1/2" deck screws
wood filler                        
  $150

Pottery Barn Ottoman from the Habitat ReStore
 $20

1/2 gallon of Killz and 1/2 gallon of white paint
  free from home

 Total: about $170 (so far!)

And there you have it!! Next we'll have to buy some task lighting , some more baskets. I'm liking the blue ones, actually. $1 from the dollar store, can't beat that!  I'm so darn proud of us!  What do you guys think???

Linked at: Tea Rose Home, The Shabby Chic Cottage, Under The Table and Dreaming,