New office desk from old cabinets
I had a makeshift office desk which consisted of a luan closet door laid over 2 non-matching metal file cabinets. They weren't even the same height and I had to put a board on top of one to help level it out some. While visiting our local ReStore recycled home materials store, I saw 2 cabinets that had some damage to the lower back corners. The drawers were in nice shape - all wood. I bought them for $15 each and sanded them down, primed them, and painted them a semi-gloss white that I used for the trim in my house. To hide the damage to the corners I built out the toe kick on the front to make it flush with the front and added baseboard trim around the bottoms. I took my old luan door and painted it an espresso color left over from painting my kitchen cabinets. I then added a couple coats of polyacrylic to the door to make the finish a little more durable. Finally I bought new drawer pulls for about $5 each. The keyboard tray is simply a leftover shelf board that I painted white and put 14" drawer slides on to make it slide in and out. It's nice and wide. Plenty of room for my keyboard and mouse. Total cost not including paint, the top, and board for the keyboard tray which I already had was $65 - $30 for the cabinets, $30 for the drawer pulls, and $5 for the keyboard drawer slides.
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Comments (3)Love the new color, it really adds some character to the room!...See MoreAdvice on painting an old desk black
Comments (36)A Yew dining table and chairs? There is a good chance that you could sell for a large amount, buy exactly what you want to replace them in your new look and have a tidy bit of money to spare. Not forced to be correct, but worth checking out first. I am a big fan of preserving, renovating and repurposing but when considering repurposing I do check this out first. Since the point of repurposing is meant to be to save money as well as reducing materials used in getting a new look, then the idea of selling them (thus not wasted) has to be looked at first. Once repurposed the process cannot be undone and the value of the item as an original is gone. Of course a lot of things are great for repurposing as they are not of a condition or design or material that others want in the current condition, so fine, modify to your heart's content - I do that too. For example I have some furniture made from pallets. I made armchairs and a coffee table from a type of polystyrene used to space large pipes during transport (I had to sell them as I got fed up of being pestered by someone who wanted them so badly). I also have a wooden chest that is 17th century - I wouldn't dream of altering that....See Morediscreet office desk for open plan living?
Comments (27)Hi Tani, Can I start by saying what a cool space you have! You can see you've made it your own and I love the use of plants. So, what about an upcycle? I think a small sideboard unit or dresser would look amazing. A solid wood so you could give it a light sand, then really you could go wild with a charcoal, graphite or white. OR just to throw something a little wild out there a natural rattan style wood could look amazing as it would bounce so well off all the natural plants and foliage you have in there. If you find one with a couple of small side drawers you could look at cutting the drawer fronts off the boxes, joining the fronts together and adding hinges to one side then this could house the printer. Drill a hole through the back panel where needed and all cables etc can feed through there saving there being unsightly wires under the unit. I would love to see what you go for, please do update us. Charlie @The Kitchen Lady UK www.thekitchenladyuk.co.uk...See Moreshould I paint my kitchen cupboards or buy new doors? Is the style old
Comments (4)I would paint them! If you have a look at our Kitchen Refurbishment project on our page, it's exactly what we did. We replaced the hinges and knobs on an old pine kitchen with polished chrome and painted the cabinets. The client cried when she saw it finished, she was so pleased, and her friends and family thought she'd had a new kitchen!...See More
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