Pining Over a Desk

Last year, Ross offered to build me a writing desk so I would have a proper place to write. It evolved into a many-phase project that we ended up doing together.

Titling this post even became it’s own phase. He calls it, “Writing Desk: Phase 100”. I thought about calling it, “A Proper Place to Write” but that seemed limiting since I can write anywhere. It almost made the cut since I’ve wanted to have a dedicated place that’s just for writing—one that I can return to, an area where I can leave my notes askew, and have art around it that inspires me. So I guess I’ve been longing for this desk. And it’s made from pine…voila!

Inspired by a friend’s table (thanks Amanda!), we used some of Home Depot’s finest pine and attached it to four hairpin legs. Through trials with errors, life events in between, and moving across the country with only a car full of clothes and books, we’ve wrapped up the final chapters of this endeavor. Here are the phases in all their glory:

1. Ordered legs from hairpinlegs.com. Purchased lumber, stain, brush, nuts, and bolts at Home Depot.
2. Stained the wood hastily, it turned out blotchy, and we didn’t like it.
3. Ross drove the materials from Seattle to Olympia to fix it up with the assistance of his parents. They drilled holes in the table top for the legs and proceeded to flip the board over, painting it a dark green hue.
4. Back home, I attached the table top to the hairpin legs with nuts and bolts. Discovering the holes were slightly off, I carved out the rest with a screwdriver (because the drill bit was left in Olympia).
5. Painted the bolts the same color as the table top.
6. Used desk as a staging area for our move across the US.
7. To decrease our car weight we disassembled it, donated the top to Ballard Reuse in Seattle, and shipped the legs to our new home.
8. Purchased a new board and materials. Keeping the look simple and to protect it from stains, we gave it a satin finish with two coats of polyurethane and let it cure.
9. Titled blog post.
10. Wrote blog post.
11. Drilled holes and attached legs.
12. Ross snapped a photo of me at the desk.

tl;dr: The DIY desk saga came to a close after 10 months and 12 phases.

Now we’re inspired to make a coffee table (in less steps with a faster turnaround) and learn how to successfully stain a cheap piece o’ pine!