DIY Desk Hack

Using a small budget, we spent a Saturday afternoon on a DIY desk hack to convert a small vintage desk into a long office desk.

VINTAGE DESK BEFORE

Fairly recently, I gave my teen son’s bedroom a makeover.  It only took a few days, but painting the walls and adding curtains and a rug, completely changed the look of his room.  Since then, he has continued to use this small desk and have a bare wall.  However, I had an idea for this wall that would happen “down the road.”  Guess what?  Down the road just happened!

{TEEN BOY BEDROOM MAKEOVER}   {TEEN BOY BEDROOM RUG}

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My goal for my children’s bedrooms is to create a space that utilizes their room in a way that would best serve them.  I intentionally take time to observe what they love to spend their time doing and how I can foster creativity and talent.  For my teen son, I knew that this wall would best serve him with a long desk and open shelving.

After spending some time researching online for a ready-made desk, I realized that it would serve our budget best to do a DIY desk hack.  I moved my searching to local online sale sites, such as Facebook Marketplace.  A few months of looking didn’t turn up anything within my budget.  That is when I realized the answer was right in front of me!

DIY DESK HACK {DEMO TIME}

After removing all of the drawers, James took the top of our son’s current desk off.

The two sides of the desk were stabilized with a board in the back.  A few screws removed…

and some cuts with a circular saw later…

James had the middle drawer and back pieces removed.

DIY DESK HACK REBUILDING

We set up the two sides the distance that we wanted to use…basically the entire wall.

In order to stabilize the long {office-type} desk, James added boards to the front and back.

At this point, the top was added.  Due to the width, we used a longer common board in the front and a shorter one in the back.  The exact width was not available to us at the store and this was the best solution for our DIY desk hack.

The original desk drawers took a beating when it was dismantled.  A fresh coat of black paint on the drawers and stain/polycrylic on the top finished the look of our DIY desk hack.

Spoiler alert: we added floating shelves to his room as well.  I had a bad blogger moment and didn’t take any photos.  But you can see info about these shelves in my kitchen open shelves post, as well as our homeschool nook makeover.

{KITCHEN OPEN SHELVES}   {HOMESCHOOL NOOK MAKEOVER}

DIY DESK HACK REVEAL

This DIY desk hack and open shelving was quite easy to accomplish.  The best part is that it is an absolutely perfect solution that adds exactly what serves my son best in his bedroom.

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