While shopping for cabinets for our laundry room makeover, we came across the massive selection of doors at the Habitat ReStore.  There must have been no less than 50 hollow core doors priced just right at whopping $10 a piece.  I don’t know if it was the pregnancy hormones [mind you, this project began in the summer of 2014!] or my inability to pass up a steal, but I convinced Taylor we needed one.

It didn’t take longer than the 20 minute drive home for me to dream up a use for the $10 door.  Consider me, a stay-at-home mom, inundated with organization pins and family command center pins realized what our home was truly lacking: a desk in the kitchen! [one might think a finished basement, but no, not me.]

A desk, I thought would cure that whole “where do we put the mail that we never open?” problem.  A desk, I thought, would be the place I would sit down, drink my coffee and blog.  A desk, would be a place where I would become and thrive as the CEO of our family.  Gosh, I was such a mom of 1 when I thought all of these things.

Yes, that’s where my husband believes we keep our shoes.

Just as the cave-women before us, I was convinced we could find a purpose for the WHOLE door and so my pinning began.  We scored a great filing cabinet to use for one side of the desk from the Craigslist man who sold us a dresser for Noah’s Big Boy room.  And by great, I mean your standard clay colored metal filing cabinet which obviously wouldn’t cut it.

In an attempt to make the filing cabinet a little less Office Space and a little more Pottery barn, I dragged it’s metal-y goodness outside for a fresh coat of Rust-o-leum’s “French Cream” spray paint in Matte.

Meanwhile, Taylor had the tedious task of cutting plywood to mount on the front of the drawer fronts.  Granted, this task doesn’t seem to strenuous until you find out that he was cutting large sheets of plywood with a 10″ miter saw.

The face needed a little oomph to reach PB filing cabinet status.  We [we as in, I suggested and Taylor executed] added molding to the base of the cabinet and flat molding to the face of the drawers to achieve the shaker-style look.

I purchased the drawer pulls from eBay and painted them with Rust-o-leum “Rubbed Oil Bronze” spray paint.  The filing cabinet went a while [much longer than I had hoped] without proper drawer pulls.  Taylor successfully drilled the first holes and then life, [or you know, having a baby] got in the way.

 

During Christmas 2014, my dad gifted us a Kreg-Jig [that Taylor refused to believe we needed].  This was the bee in our [my] bonnet we needed to knock out Part I of this project, beginning with cutting the door in half [again…done with a 10″ saw…you have no idea what a PITA that was…and neither do I, but ask Taylor and I’m sure he’ll tell you!]

Once the door was was snapped in half-ish [Ooh La Laura is very technical as you can see], Tay applied bead board to the side that would be facing outward and molding to the bottom to match the base of the filing cabinet.  I took the bottle of Rust-o-leum “French Cream”  to the paint mixing counter at Home Depot and those kind souls who may or may not know me by name [and have rescued a stranded toy or two left behind by Noah] mixed up a quart that would be used to paint the sides, desk top, and molding of the desk.

That Kreg-Jig [that we simply do not need, right Taytay ;)] was used to attach the door-turned-desk side to the door-turned-desk top. 

Taylor trimmed the desk top and caulked the gap.  Once dried and prepped, I applied the French Cream paint and Polyurethane. Fun fact: Polyurethane ambers over time.  That would explain the yellow tint the desk top has taken on in certain spots less than a year later.   Sadly, my should-be-cream desk top needs to be repainted.  Such is life.

Oh looky here…the desk is finished-ish and one handle is on [but not screwed in so don’t you dare pull on it…I’m talking to you Aria!]

If you haven’t noticed, this project has been super heavy in the “Taylor” department.  He’s got all those measuring and mathematical skills one might need to be a Cost Engineer [PE] so I regularly hand off the cuts, drilling, and “make this work” stuff to him.  So if you think I really shrugged off a lot of the work on Part I…wait til you read Part II where we may or may not have drawer pulls that are actually screwed in.

 

*Xx,