my new desk!

alright so I know I have eluded to my new desk a few times and I can't wait to share it with you. I am pretty proud of myself for this DUY.

so as you can see above, I bought a piece of maple at home depot but because of the weird way my wall is, I needed them to cut a notch out of the back corner.

(now, I must warn you, I read a sign when I was at home depot that they only are allowed to make 2 cuts per piece of wood and you have to pay for any additional cuts. I suggest going with a skirt on and playing the 'but I will never be able to cut this at home, whoa is me" card. works like a charm. he cut my board 7 times)

stained wood! I've never done that before but it was very easy. I just bought some foam brushes at walmart and in between coats (you have to let it dry for 3 hours) I put the brush in a zip lock bag which kept it from drying out. 

this is the varathane I used. worked great. I have nothing to compare it to but this little jar was the perfect amount. 

okay so with the leftover side of wood, I had him cut it into three equal pieces. then brother ian and his friend loud zach drilled them into place at the proper height. You can see my weird wall and why I needed the cut out. 

this is also a good shot of what the wood looked like before I stained it. also, do you see that edge on the wood, how its all rough and ugly.... 

and again here? well the reason the one side is nice and the other is ugly is because you can buy this stuff that looks like your wood but comes in a strip with sticky stuff on the back. you just have to line it up and then iron it on to the wood. I also threw a couple coats of varathane on the edge so that the colours matched. 

now the best part! decorating the space.

I bought this great map of the GREAT lakes at russet and empire a couple weekends ago. I also had a cork board which I hang my jewelry on and other important things (like my pilates schedule!) the lamp is really a chinese paper lantern with the end of a broken lamp inside of it.

TA DA!!

 wine was my reward for finishing this project.

under the desk organization are wine boxes that hold supplies and the white vintage cart has dividers in the top for bills and other important papers so I can stay organized.

So over all I am pretty proud of making my new desk area myself and its super functional for all my blogging goodness. not to bad for about $30! 

oh and just in case you wanted to see the before, this is what the spaced looked like for a few months when I first moved in -

I moved all the clothes out of the dresser into the closet and under bed rolling boxes and then sold the dresser on craigslist for $60. it was soooo broken anyway. 

hope you are having a great long weekend!