This is the desk that Jack built...

...with a little help from Cory, Kisses and me!

That's right; my famiy and I built me a desk. A super cool, large, adjustable, new desk. It’s for my craft room. Sure, it’s just a desk, but the fact that my DH and the pups helped me build it makes it the best desk ever!

I also have my sassy friend Wendy to thank. I got the idea for the desk on her blog, and she gave me great tips for making the desk. Thanks, Smed!

Here's how the desk came together:

Step 1: Buy the desk legs and fabulous pink chair from IKEA. Only, they’re completely sold out of the legs, so I’ll have to come back for them.

Step 2: Go back to IKEA for the legs, because I’m told they’ll be in now…but they aren’t, so I’ve just wasted a trip. Well, not exactly. I did get a cute, pink shelf out of the deal.

Step 3: Go back to IKEA AGAIN for my desk legs. At last, success.

Step 4: Build the legs and chair. A word of caution. DO NOT build your stylish desk legs when you’re angry. It’s not the desk’s fault. Take it out on something else…something a little less expensive. Now my desk legs have permanent hammer damage, but at least the damage is somewhat hard to see.

Step 5: Take a little break! Have a seat at the desk without a top, in the chair without legs. This is hard work, after all.

Step 6: Give my new legs a squishy new home on top of a squishy pink carpet. Love it! (Leave it to Jack to immediately move in and make this his resting place. It’s soft. It’s on the floor. It must be for him.)

Step 7: Measure how big the desk top needs to be and go to Home Depot. (Thanks for the tip to measure BEFORE buying, Smed!) This is where Cor and I had a big piece of melamine cut into thirds – leaving me with three desk tops. Three tops for $30? That’s a steal! As any crafter will tell you, cute, white desks don’t stay cute and white for long. Between painting, stamping and gluing, they’re bound to get messed up, so now I have two backups for when that happens.

Step 8: Iron the melamine siding on the rough edges of the desk. (Thanks for another great tip, Smed!) This siding stuff can also be found at Home Depot.

Step 9: Attach a lip to the end of the desk to keep things from rolling off. This was my sweet Cory’s idea. You see, the desk legs are designed to lift and lower the desk top, which includes lifting just the back half for a cool architect feel. Since it slants, Cor bought some white board, had it cut to the desk size, and hammered it on. He had a little help from the pups, of course.



Step 10: Step back and enjoy the results of our hard work.

I’ll show you more craft-room results soon, so please stay tuned.