We’re making a desk: the plan

When I first started blogging– like, a day ago- I wrote posts from the sofa. Then I made myself this sweet little zen like floor set up. That worked for about 20 minutes until I stood up and my legs were dead.  I realized I just wanted some small space that could be my own.  This venture can be time consuming. While creating posts it would be nice to have an inspiring space that’s all mine. Our house is not big but it’s perfect for us. We use every square foot of our home, which is a great thing until you’re looking to add a new purpose for a room. After surveying the lay of the land, I asked my hubs what he thought about creating a desk space in the corner of our front room.

For a while, we’ve had this IKEA book shelf filled with my man’s
many books. This is only a very small portion of them… its hard to
artfully find a place for them all. But I love them because he loves
them. Also, I started pushing overdrive and e-books so that hopefully
our collection doesn’t grow by much in the future ; )

Back
to business.  I cleared out the shelves and sold the unit pretty
quickly. I found a new place for the books and we were left with a cozy
space and an empty wall.

I pinned desk inspirations here on my Pinterest account and showed him pictures to give him an idea of what I wanted. We collaborated. He cares about function and I care about form. We make a good team.

Then I found these plans by Ana White for a leaning desk. Just the center part was perfect for the small space that we had to fill. Its not bulky and seemed simple enough.  She includes tutorials and plans and has made almost any piece of furniture you can hope to find. Her website is good stuff. Go look!

There were a few things we decided to change about the plans.
1. We made the desk a bit wider to fill the section of the wall.
2. We made the legs out of 1×4’s instead of 1×3’s to mimic our door trim in the house and make it a little more sturdy.
3. In the plan, the 2 top shelves are 1×6 and 1×8. We chose to make the shelves 1×8 and 1×10 for a little bit more depth and storage capabilities.
4. I didn’t want the shelves to have the lip around 3 sides but I did want the look of a thicker shelf, so the hubby made the shelves with the ledges, but we’ll be flipping the shelves upside down and backwards to give the feeling of a thicker shelf. Does that make sense? No? Good. OK. (I’ll show you what I mean in pictures. Promise.)

Then we did what any childless-for-a-night couple would do: we went to Lowe’s. Duh. We started out by cutting the wood to size.

We carried the 1×4 legs inside and decided what angle we wanted them to come out of the wall. Hubs wanted a wider angle than the plans because he wanted the desk to be as sturdy as possible. After he made all the cuts, I was his assistant in holding pieces of the shelves to be nailed together. After that, I filled in nail holes with wood filler and sanded a bit. Here are the shelves completed and ready for paint.

Paint went pretty fast. I had to paint the underside of the shelves because I didn’t want to see any unfinished wood once they were installed.  I used chalk paint that I already had mixed from the girly dresser redo.  Each piece needed 2 coats but it went pretty fast.  After everything was dry, I made sure to apply a thick coat of wax so that the surface would be easily cleanable and water and scratch resistant.  I did consider staining the piece, just like the Ana White desk, but I didn’t want it take up too much visual space and make the corner look full, so I plan to add warmth with the accessories I put on the shelves.

I’m going to leave off here. Can’t wait to show you the finished product though. Spoiler Alert: I love it so much!

Have you ever ventured into furniture making? What did you make? Tell me!

Thanks for reading, friends.