Hello to all you Shanty Fans!

My name is Traci, and I blog at Beneath My Heart!

I am so thrilled to be guest posting for Whitney and Ashley today as they enjoy some much needed R & R.

I love the Shanty sisters, and I especially love the way they are not afraid to break out the power tools.

So in honor of their “go get ’em” attitudes, I thought I would show you how I made a new desk for my office (with the help of a few power tools, of course!)

 

If you follow my blog, (which I sure hope you do!), you know that we recently moved into a new home. The home is quite a bit smaller than our previous home.

So in order to make room for all my “stuff”, I have had to try and come up with some creative storage ideas.

One thing I decided to try was to build a skirted desk for my office. I thought the skirt would be the perfect place to hid some of my office “uglies”. (Paint, paperwork, printer, ribbons, bills, etc…)

I decided to make a desk, or you might want to call it a table, that was a long as the wall in that room.

I purchase three 2x10x8’s from Lowe’s and placed them on our saw horses…

Then I cut each board 82 inches long. (You could cut them as long or as short as you needed them.)

Then I cut 2×4’s to make a frame smaller than the top of the table.

 

I used PL adhesive caulk at the end of each 2×4 before I used my nail gun to nail them together.

 

 

 

I also used PL adhesive caulk on the frame before I nailed it to the top of the table…

 

I placed the three 2×10’s on top of my 2×4 frame and nailed them together.

 

Next, I cut some 2×4’s for the legs of the table and nailed them to the frame. It didn’t matter if my table had ugly legs because I knew I would be covering them with a skirt.

I made my table 30 inches high.

Then I used a clean cloth to wipe on the stain…

It is called Provencial from Minwax.

For the skirt, I cut strips from some drop cloths 31 inches long…

I LOVE drop cloths! I especially love that they are already hemmed on one side, so I didn’t even have to break out my sewing machine for this project!

Next, I stapled the drop cloth to a 1×2 board that was cut 82 inches long (the length of the front of the table.) I gathered the material every couple of inches to create my skirt.

 

Then I attached the skirt to the table by screwing the 1×2 into the table top. (I used 2 inch wood screws.)

drop cloths

Then the material lays nicely between the 1×2 and the table top!

I did the same thing to the sides of the table too!

 

I already LOVE my new desk. I stuffed a bunch of my “uglies” underneath, and the room still looks great!

Whew!

 

I grabbed some accessorites from around my house to decorate it for now. Of course, I may change it around a bit still.

But for now, I am really going to enjoy this roomy desk!

Thank you for letting me share this project with you!

Since we just moved into a new home, I am starting from “decorating scratch”. I would love for you to follow along as I transform each room of our home on a very tight budget. It should be fun!

beneath my heart

 

Thank you, Whitney and Ashley, for letting me share my shanty today! 🙂

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21 Comments

  1. Love it…saw it just in time! I have an old door my husbnd is making into a craft table for me. I knew I wanted to put a curtain across the front to hide all the ugly plastic storage drawers! Would you say you used a length of drop cloth twice as long as your table?

  2. Love it! That stain really makes it look lovely….and drop cloths finish off another project. Don’t you just love them? Hopefully the folks at Home Depot and Lowes don’t catch on we love to decorate with them.

  3. As usual Traci, you did a fantastic job! I love your blog and your projects. Can’t wait to see what you do w/ the new house!

  4. I just saw your guest post over at tt&j and was admiring your desk. I love it-can’t believe you diy-ed it!

  5. Traci~
    I LoVe the idea of hiding all the ugly cords! I really WANT to do this! I’m really a beginner in every since of the word when it comes to wood work. Would you say this is do-able for a beginner like me!

    1. I do think it is doable, Jan. There are no fancy cuts. You just need to be able to cut on a straight line. I also used a nail gun, but a good ol’ hammer and nail could be used as well. Good luck!

  6. LOVE IT! Great idea for a table top. I wonder if that could be done for kitchen counter tops if you sealed them really well and made sure they were glued together well…like a butcher block?