Desk DIY Planning

Vacation is coming up at the end of the month.  It will be a stay-cation for us this year.  My oldest will be gone to Governor's Scholar Program so I've decided I want to work on his room while he's gone for five weeks and vacation will be the best time.  Here's what it looks like now - mess and all....

The paint's been up since we moved in 6 years ago and there's nail holes and such that need to be filled.  The room is small - only 10 by 10 with a small alcove that's almost 4 foot wide.  The bedding was bought about 1 1/2 years ago at WalMart.   The bed is an old cast iron bed my mom picked up at a yard sale for $5 when I got my first college apartment.

I'm definately keeping the bed and would like to work with the bedding.  I'm also keeping the dresser (from Ashley Furniture) and the wire shelving unit (Lowe's) that houses his tv, stereo and game systems.  The desk however needs to go.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice desk and has served it's purpose the last 3 or 4 years but as you can tell from the pics he keeps it covered and there's really no working room.  My original idea was inspired by John and Sherry at Young House Love when they used a door to create a desk.

I've looked at the local Goodwill stores over the past few months but no luck. So today I went to again to Goodwill and made the trip to ReStore looking for something that would work for building a desk. Apparently the desk angels were smiling upon me today........at Goodwill I found this filing cabinet for $7.50. 

 
Happy with my find I hoped that ReStore would show me the same kind of love.  And what do you know?  Walking in a sign greeted me with HALF OFF ALL DOORS.  Woo Hoo!  Now to find a door.  Well, actually two doors.  I've decided my other son needs a similar desk for his room.  And.......here's what I brought home!

I found two doors in fairly good condition that were 18" wide.  There were plenty of 24" doors but with the small size of the room I wanted the narrower door.  The best part?  They were marked $5 per door!  With the half off sale I was able to get two doors for the price of one!  Woo Hoo!

 

I also found some 2x4's already cut down to 30" they were selling for 25 cents each.  I found six that were in really good shape. These will become the legs and supports for the desks.  

 

 Here's even a picture of how things will look once the building begins (sans wood legs - but I had a nice stand in for those!).

Excited about my finds I talked to the oldest about the plans for his room while he's gone.  Although I'd like for the makeover to be a surprise I decided not to tempt fate and get his opinion beforehand.  He's on board with it but.............my mind wouldn't stop working...........and I started thinking about the alcove and how turning the entire area into a desk might be a better use of space...........hmmmm.......so after a little measuring and discussion with the oldest about his wants I designed the following........

The little bench at the end of the alcove houses HVAC ducting so it can't be changed.  Since the height of it is a little shorter than a desk height I decided that the entire are should be used for built in shelving that could house the CPU and monitor along with some smaller desk items.  I only want the shelves to come up to the window sill.  The desk would simply sit in front of this bench area.  A couple of smaller cubbies of the shelving unit would be below the desktop but these could still be accessed and used for more long term storage items.

Now I've just got to plan out the exact sizes of the shelving pieces and determine a price to build everything.  If this plan works out then the youngest may have an extra extra long desk for his room!

More on the project once vacation gets here!!!!

All images property of Honeysuckle on the Vine.