Guest DIY post submitted by Christi @ Beachbrights
This is where it all started—the birth of my desk. My husband built this for me, inspired by a design in a BH&G magazine from May 2005, and I painted it a distressed black. I needed a workspace for crafting, sewing, and other creative projects, and this desk has been perfect for that.
This photo shows our home office in Slidell, LA. I took these pictures just for myself back then, long before I knew about blogging, so please excuse the informal quality. You’ll also notice there’s no rug in the room—thank you, Hurricane Katrina. Circa 2005.
Our next house was in Tullahoma, TN. I don’t have a photo of the empty room, but I found this shot taken before the cabinets were painted. For the built-ins I used stock cabinets from Home Depot and painted them the same distressed black. I removed the doors on the upper cabinets to create an open feel and to add vertical height in the room. The countertop is Formica, custom ordered from Home Depot (or maybe Lowe’s). The black-and-white bins displayed on top are just white storage bins dressed up with black electrical tape in a plaid pattern. And yes—I had a rug by then, and the desk still looked fantastic. Circa 2006.
Fast forward to the present: we move a lot, so my furniture collection has become a hodgepodge of pieces that worked well in other homes but don’t always fit a new space. In my current house I had to make some very large bookshelves function in the office, which meant saying goodbye to the distressed black finish and embracing brown. To make the desk blend with the new setup, I sewed a tailored table cover and skirt, and had a piece of glass cut to fit the top. The solution is simple, effective, and makes the desk feel like it belongs in this room—at least that’s what I tell myself. Circa 2007.
This is the story of the little desk that kept reinventing itself. Who says I don’t recycle?