So, I've already teased you with this link showing you the plan for my new desk. Well, not the exact plan, but that's the point of this post. I'll show you how we adjusted the initial plan to better suit my needs and show off some pictures of the work in progress and the finished product. Here we go!
I started looking for a new desk when I got my new job. I was going to be working at home, and I felt I needed something more functional than what I had if I'd be spending so much time working at it. I had a desk in my room with my computer and piles of stuff to be filed, stuff to be put away, stuff to be shredded, stuff to be tossed . . . you get the idea. In the basement, I had a craft table set up, with stuff I'd bought for my etsy store, stuff leftover for the wedding, works in progress, and supplies. Basically, I had two desks full of stuff and no space to work. So I started searching for something that had lots of storage and a huge area for me to work. I found a plan that used a door as the top and then found a door on craigslist. Alas, the man wouldn't let me get the doors the next day—he wanted them gone ASAP and couldn't guarantee me a door. So, I finally convince Nathan we/he could build my craft table.
The only problem was that my room is not quite big enough for what the plan originally called for. It's a small, cozy room, with a daybed and a rocking chair, and I didn't want to sacrifice either of those. So we cut the depth down, and to keep the space, we also made it longer. It was also too high for me, so we made it shorter. And because of these measurments and the fact that I wanted to store my sewing machine on a shelf, we decided to only have one shelf on the sides. Let's just say we spent almost the same amount of time figuring out the math for the new plan as we did building it. But we got it (almost) perfect in the end.
We checked with Nathan's dad to see if he had any scrap wood he could cut for us, but while he was waiting for said scrap wood to dry out enough, Nathan's mom found a sale on plywood at a local hardware store. They were able to pick that up for us and cut it according to our measurements, which was very helpful. And then, on my birthday, the wood was delivered and ready for us to put together.
I started looking for a new desk when I got my new job. I was going to be working at home, and I felt I needed something more functional than what I had if I'd be spending so much time working at it. I had a desk in my room with my computer and piles of stuff to be filed, stuff to be put away, stuff to be shredded, stuff to be tossed . . . you get the idea. In the basement, I had a craft table set up, with stuff I'd bought for my etsy store, stuff leftover for the wedding, works in progress, and supplies. Basically, I had two desks full of stuff and no space to work. So I started searching for something that had lots of storage and a huge area for me to work. I found a plan that used a door as the top and then found a door on craigslist. Alas, the man wouldn't let me get the doors the next day—he wanted them gone ASAP and couldn't guarantee me a door. So, I finally convince Nathan we/he could build my craft table.
The only problem was that my room is not quite big enough for what the plan originally called for. It's a small, cozy room, with a daybed and a rocking chair, and I didn't want to sacrifice either of those. So we cut the depth down, and to keep the space, we also made it longer. It was also too high for me, so we made it shorter. And because of these measurments and the fact that I wanted to store my sewing machine on a shelf, we decided to only have one shelf on the sides. Let's just say we spent almost the same amount of time figuring out the math for the new plan as we did building it. But we got it (almost) perfect in the end.
We checked with Nathan's dad to see if he had any scrap wood he could cut for us, but while he was waiting for said scrap wood to dry out enough, Nathan's mom found a sale on plywood at a local hardware store. They were able to pick that up for us and cut it according to our measurements, which was very helpful. And then, on my birthday, the wood was delivered and ready for us to put together.
The first thing we (I mean, Nathan. Let's face it—I helped but he did the hard work!) did was build the big side box. We had to hold everything up so that we could visualize where it went, and then Nathan put everything together. We only had a few missteps along the way, mostly in shelf placement, but it only took about an hour and a half.
We thought the second one would be even easier because we'd already done it once. WRONG. We started with the wrong boards three times before we figured it out. Turns out we need to visualize and then build, even if it's just repeating a process we've just done; we don't learn from experience. Once both sides were done, we carried them upstairs and put the top on in the actual room. We'd discovered earlier on that the only mistake we made measurement-wise was that the front side pieces were taller than the top, meaning that we needed to add a quarter-inch board to the back to level it. Luckily, I remembered that we had one in the shed that the previous owners had left behind, and Nathan used the snowblower to get back there so we could finish the desk.
And there you have it! Now for a tour of the desk. Shelby does like to sit on the rug while I'm in there working (or Facebooking, as the case may be). On the left shelves, I have all of my etsy stuff: paper, fabric, ribbon, notebooks, and everything I have in my inventory. The front shelves in the left hold my craft supplies: glue, glue gun, tape, markers. The right side has all of my personal projects and supplies: paper for my scrapbook, work stuff, a plastic bin of things I need to scrapbook. And the front shelves hold office supplies (staper), my books (dictionary and style guides), journals, and supplies for the printer. It's really nice to have everything organized in a way that makes sense with my mind, even though it doesn't look especially neat (which is why you don't get pictures of the finished space!). But what's important is that it's functional. And don't worry: we plan on painting the whole thing white when it gets warmer out, though I can see a benefit of leaving it as is: If I get paint or glue or whatever on it, it doesn't really matter.
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