One Room Challenge: Week 4 (Custom Desk Build)

Welcome back to my One Room Challenge! We’re only 2 weeks away from the “big reveal” and I still have a ton of work to do, but I’m loving the progress so far. I skipped Week 3 because I wanted to show you the desk my husband built for me, but it wasn’t quite ready yet. So I decided to bump the desk build up to Week 4 instead! Remember, you can see all of the participants in the One Room Challenge RIGHT HERE on Calling It Home.

You might remember from Week 1 that I wanted an L-shaped desk with storage. My original plan was to use the IKEA shelving unit for one side of the desk, but after further assessment, my husband and I both agreed that it wouldn’t look or feel like a solid, sturdy desk.

I decided instead to use a large, heavy, wooden console table that used to hold our living room TV. We’ve since moved our TV above the fireplace, so this beautiful console table needed a new home anyway.

P.S. I got a new rug. Lovin’ it!

So, my husband needed to build a top for my desk, and it turned out absolutely beautiful!

CUSTOM DESK BUILD PLANS

We decided to center the console table along the far wall and build the desk top off of the front edge. For the far end, I purchased an IKEA Alex drawer unit in black/brown. The desk top my husband would build would sit on top of this drawer unit.

I placed the Alex drawer unit wherever I wanted it in the room, then we measured the distance from the outer edge of the console table to the end of the drawer unit to determine the length of the desk top.

The height of the console table was about 1″ taller than the height of the drawer unit, so my hubby had to figure out how to make up the height difference. We’ll get to that in a moment.

After determining the length and depth of the desk top, he started the build.

We initially planned to use 1x10s but decided that 2x10s would be a heavier and sturdier desk top. So, we purchased 3 2x10s and cut one of them in half lengthwise.

NOTE: Any time you purchase wood, you should know that the name of the board is a rounded up measurement of the actual size. For example, a 2″ x 10″ board is actually 1 3/4″ x 9 3/4″. Good to know. 🙂

We used wood glue and clamps to hold the boards together while my husband drilled pocket holes along the center board, screwing the boards together to form a chunky wooden desk top.

After the boards were attached, my husband sanded them down and stained the desk top a gorgeous dark wood stain to match the console table. After the stain dried completely, he then applied two coats of polyurethane with a foam brush for protection and shine.

STAIN USED: Minwax in Jacobean (affiliate link)

He wasn’t crazy about the IKEA drawer unit being visible, so he cut a piece of plywood to size and used that to mask the drawer unit, making it look more like a true desk.

Excuse Daisy Mae’s butt. She really likes my new rug.

You can see at the top of the piece of plywood, we simply used finishing nails to attach it to the exterior of the drawer unit.

We used L-brackets to attach the desk top to the console table. The stains match almost perfectly and the console table gives me plenty of storage and extra desk top space.

Now all that’s left is figuring out what I want to put on the walls, hanging curtains, and decorating. Oh, and cleaning. I hate that part.

By the way, if you spied that gorgeous wooden sign with my logo on it at the top of this post, I’ll share the details in Week 6 during the big reveal!

CATCH UP:

[one-half-first]Week 1: The Plans[/one-half-first]
[one-half]Week 2: Fresh Paint[/one-half]

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