Part 2 OR How to Give Yourself a Hernia Lifting This Thing
Whew! It’s been a tiring week. But I’m not complainin’. I love this stuff. I just wish I had more energy.
Remember, this is how my dining room/school room started.
Those little desks were always cluttered looking even though we are a pretty neat bunch. I really like them, but they would work better in a room that wasn’t also our living area. Also, they blocked the window and I needed some display space in the room.
You’ve already seen how I made my floating shelves. So now I’ll show you my ginormous desk.
The idea was that I could use it as a desk OR a buffet for holidays and large groups for dinner. Plus, if you’ll refer back to exhibit A (oh dear, too much law school study with James this week), you’ll see that there was a lot of wasted space. My house isn’t very big, so I can’t have wasted space.
Hope was my helper on this project. We started with a frame.
Yowsa! That’s HUGE!
I just wanted simple legs, so I made them with 1 x 3’s.
We attached the legs, screwed 1/2″ plywood to the top and painted it. Once it was dry we carried the 2 ton monster into the house. It was a group effort.
Oh! By the way….I have to tell you about my new Wagner Paint Sprayer. It has changed my life. Goodbye hours of painting misery. Hello happy free time.
But my paint sprayer is not my truest BFF. This is……
Red sweetness in a 6 gallon container with a brad nailer attached. If it were human and I wasn’t so crazy about James….I would totally marry it.
OK, back to the project. Believe it or not, people will often call me and say, “Hey, I have a bunch of ___________ left over from a project. I was going to throw it out, but I thought you might want it.” That is how I got these gorgeous planks for the top of the desk/buffet. They were already stained and ready to use. I was worried about how to trim it. How could I possibly match the existing stain?
I got a couple of good quality 1x 4’s and used my router along the top edge. Then I took a piece of the wood planks to the hardwork store and matched it as well as I could. I am pretty shocked at how well it turned out. Even up close you can hardly tell that they are not exactly the same color. Score!
The finished wall.
If you’re following me from yesterday, you’ll see that I already painted my chairs white. I am hoping to slip cover the brown chairs at each end this weekend.
I’ve still got one more post on my school room. I want to show you the other side of the room, which is where the magic happens. The desk/buffet is for the kids to work on their own. I have another side of the room with another table that is where we work together. You’ve seen it before, but I have a few little things to show you still.
Linking to Style Feature Saturday @ Perfectly Imperfect
What a great before and after!! My only problem if I had a desk that long would be that I would still have every square inch covered in papers!!!
Thank you so much for going and voting for my arbor!! I felt so loved when Jonathan came to make this for me! (He was a home schooled boy too)
bee blessed
mary
.-= Mary´s last blog ..Just a Few More Hours to Cast Your Vote! =-.
Amazing Lisa, just amazing. I really like the new look. I can’t even express how terrific it looks.
Cherie
Love the way the chairs look in white. I can’t believe you did ALL of this in 3 days. I’ve been working on a dining set for a week now, and all I’ve completed are 2 chairs. We’re talking paint only here, not building crazy beautiful built-ins. You are AMAZING. 🙂
.-= Cara´s last blog ..Alex Trebec is the Emcee of My Life =-.
Awesome…love the chairs white. And do you realize how superwoman you are for getting this all done in less than a week? Do you drink protein shakes? Like, 10 times a day?? thanks for linking up, friend! -shaunna 🙂
.-= shaunna´s last blog ..Style Feature Saturday and A Giveaway!!! =-.
You all are cracking me up. It’s just my personality I guess, but I do tend to get things done quickly. I don’t know why. I do a lot of planning and preparation beforehand and I set aside a few days of no school and easy meals. I have to get it done quickly, otherwise it would sit there, unfinished for months and THAT is something I could not deal with. So basically, I am impatient and self centered. I want it finished! Did you all see how I build a whole room for Noah in 8 days? Even I can’t believe I did that one! Lisa~
You NEVER cease to amaze me friend! OH.MY.GOODNESS! It is beautiful!!! How did you manage to squeeze that major project in between school and everything else you do in a week?
.-= Angela´s last blog ..Top 10 child training tips =-.
How do you do it? You’re my HERO.
.-= lisa´s last blog ..A Great Day =-.
You have three times as many children as I and got all of this done in one day? Amazing! It looks great!
I am itching to build this for our school room. We share the school room with my hubby’s office. I love the streamline look of this, plus I like that 4 kiddos can sit and work with plenty of space. We have a similar wall in our house 12+ feet long! I want to put book shelves underneath, too. I wanted to ask if you attached this to the studs in your wall or if you just built it as a super long, narrow table and it can be moved? (Hoping all of that made sense!)
😉
Thanks!
Shannon