Project: Crafting Desk for $130 (USD)

Posted by Som Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:34:00 GMT

We bought our first house last August, and it's taken me this long to get most of the house (and the yard) in order. Now that my girls are both in school, I've given them my little old red desk - "Suzy," as I dubbed it - and set up the breakfast room as their own little "office." And since I've taken up gardening, I've been spending most of my "house money" on plants and the like, so I needed a new desk, and I needed it on the cheap.

My first inclination was to build a sawhorse desk - a door sitting on top of a couple of sawhorses - but I didn't like the lack of storage options such a desk would provide. Then I took another look at the cheap little metal filing cabinet I bought a couple of weeks ago, and lo and behold, and idea was born!

First of all, my desk requirements: I need something big so I can spread out crafting stuff to my heart's content - sewing machines and small desks aren't exactly compatible. I also want it to be a little lower than a standard desk for ergonomic reasons. I want the desk to have lots of storage for office supplies and filing. And finally, I want it to be passably attractive; my office room is separated from the living room by French doors, so it's a highly visible space. What I've come up with fulfills all of these requirements.

First, a word about the materials:

The filing cabinets: I got these at Target for about $30 each. They have casters on the bottom, which makes the desk mobile and easy to move around the room. It'd be a real pain to move the thing without wheels. Make sure you check out the height of the cabinets you buy, or you could end up with a desk that's far too short or far too tall. My cabinets measure 12" wide by 18" deep by 27" high with the casters on, which is perfect for my needs.

The door: The door is a wood interior slab door, which was $30 at Lowe's. It has no doorknobs, no hinges, no nothing - just a flat wood surface, 80" by 28" (they had widths ranging from 24" to 36".) I'd have used one of the many orphan doors cluttering up my garage, but they all had panels (e.g., weren't flat,) so they wouldn't make a very good desk top. You need to put some thought into the width of your door/desktop; sure, a 36" deep desk would be great, but would your filing cabinet drawers pull out far enough for you to get into them? Remember, there's going to be a lip on this desk, and the top drawers will be useless if you can't access them.

Paint: I used a semi-gloss paint, but high-gloss enamel will work too. The glossy paints will hide scratches and nicks better than a flat paint would, and it will wear better too.

I'd rate this project as super-easy for beginners. If you can use a screwdriver, sandpaper, ruler, and paintbrush, you're good to go!

All right, now the instructions! (Click below for extended content:)

Materials:

• 2 small 2-drawer filing cabinets, preferably with casters
• 1 plain wood interior door slab
• non-adhesive rubber shelf liner
• straight edge
• sanding paper
• quart of paint (semi- or high-gloss,) paintbrush, roller, dropcloth, etc.

Method:

1. Assemble your filing cabinets.

2. Cut the non-adhesive rubber shelf liner to fit the top of your filing cabinets (12"x18" in my case.) It doesn't have to be pretty - this isn't going to be visible once the desk is finished. The liner will keep the desk top from slipping and keep the filing cabinets in place. Now would be a good time to lay out your dropcloth and put the filing cabinets on top of it.

3. Bring in your door. If it has dents or other flaws, pick the best side for the top and lay it top-DOWN on your filing cabinets. Break out your medium-grit (I used 80) sandpaper and get to work! An orbital sander would be your friend here; you've got a lot of wood to cover. You want to sand the bottom of the desk because that will give you a little more traction to keep it from sliding on the rubber shelf liner.

4. Once you've sanded, get your straight edge and a pen and mark where you want the door to sit on the filing cabinets. Mine are sitting 12" in from the edge of the door.

5. Flip the door over, set it in place on the cabinets, and get to sanding the top and edges of the desk. Wipe down the sawdust off the desk, open some windows, turn on a fan, and get ready to-

6. Paint! Paint the top and sides of your desk, using the paintbrush for the edges and the roller for the center. If you need multiple coats, be sure to sand between coats. (Note: It'd probably be a good idea to put on a coat of primer before you paint. I'm kind of wishing I had.)

And you're done!

(Yes, I hate the yellow on the walls, too. No, I did not choose the color; it came with the house.)

There are a lot of options you could play with here. I'm sure you could find a couple of matching filing cabinets on the cheap by searching your local junk stores; same with the door, unless you happen to have just the right door sitting in your basement or garage. You can find discounted paint at some places, too - quarts that another customer rejected, leftover paint from other projects, a neglected gallon your friend's not using, etc. In fact, the doors look pretty nice plain, so paint's not absolutely necessary. You could also opt to stain the door instead of painting it. Point is, the $130 price is for brand-new materials at retail; I'm guessing it could be done for about a quarter of the price if you've got the time and inclination to shop around.

If you're worried about the desktop staying in place, you could use industrial Velcro to hold the pieces together, or attach the door to the cabinets with a bracket and screws, or bolt the cabinets directly to the door (from the underside of the top of the cabinets, obviously.) You could build a double-sided desk for two with a 36"-wide door and four 18"-deep cabinets; the front of the cabinets will line up with the edge of the desk and will sit flush back-to-back.

One of the best things about this desk is the mobility. If I ever need more floorspace in my office for some reason, I can pick up the desk top, lean it against the wall, and roll the cabinets into a closet - voila! No more desk! I can roll it into the center of the room for crafting parties (which I swear I'm going to start doing eventually) so that a lot of people can crowd around and use the desk. I'm even considering rolling it into the kitchen for use on baking days, because I don't have another surface that's a good height for kneading dough. Roll it into your dining room for an impromptu buffet dinner, or put it out in the yard for a garage sale table - the possibilities are endless. Just make sure you keep the leftover paint around, because as much as you're going to be using this table, it'll need touching up eventually!