Studio Desk Makeover – Part 1

That means the desk needs a makeover. With its black base and thick brown top, it looked too dark and heavy for the room. So my plan is to reconfigure the base, paint it a light color (I haven’t decided if it’s white or gold yet), then paint the desktop white. I want to add decorative details to the sides and add two drawers.

I started this makeover by removing the boards that created the “V” detail in the front. These were attached with nails and wood glue, so I removed them fairly easily with a few good, swift hits with a rubber mallet.

Then I removed the bottom horizontal brace board. It’s attached with four screws through the pocket holes, so it’s easy to remove using my drill with a screwdriver bit.

I flipped the base so it was facing the front and then I attached that board back to the top. I will eventually add some plywood to the inside so that this section is not visible and provides the necessary cover to hide the new drawers.

Once it was attached, I sat the base upright and it looked like this…

Next, I repeated the same process on the side…

And then I wanted to figure out how to attach these decorative leaf cutouts that I found at Hobby Lobby. I started by cutting some 1″ x 4″ lumber to create a rough frame around the leaf design and how I wanted the leaf pattern to sit inside the frame. I decided to do this with the leaf design by touching the frame at four points – one on each side of the frame. At this point, my main goal was to determine the rough dimensions of the inside of the frame.

After I found the inside dimensions, I ran those boards through my planer three times to plan them down to 1/2-inch thickness to fit the leaf cutout.

Next, I needed to figure out how wide those boards needed to be for the frame. The space they needed to fill on the desk was 29 inches wide, so I measured the total width of the cutout with the frame, subtracted 29 inches from that width, and then divided that number by two to get the total width I needed. . Cut each board so that the finished product is 29 inches wide. I used my table saw to cut the boards down to the correct width.

I started by nailing the top and side pieces through the edges of the side pieces into the ends of the top piece using wood glue and 1.5-inch 18-gauge nails.

With those pieces assembled, I placed the leaf cutout into the frame, and then I could mark exactly where the bottom part would be. I attached the bottom using wood glue and nails just like the other pieces.

Then I nailed the leaf cutout by shooting nails through the outside edge of the frame and into the four points where the cutout touches the frame. So this nail went through the frame and into the edge of the leaf.

And it went through the frame and into the edge of the stem.

You get the point. That’s why I need to make sure that the leaf cutout is in contact with the frame on all four sides.

On this side, I had a misfire before getting the nail to go into the leaf. But there’s nothing my Dremel Multi-Max and a little wood filler and sanding can’t fix. I usually don’t pull out misfired nails (although it depends on the exact scenario) because of the risk of tearing and splitting the wood. I usually use my Dremel Multi-Max with a blade that cuts nails and I cut the protruding part of the nail. If the blade cuts into the wood a bit, I fix it with wood filler.

After I was done with this, it was too late to use my miter saw to cut off the extra pieces of the frame. (Matt had a terrible day yesterday, so most of my time was spent on him and not as much work as I’d hoped.) But I did set the leaf design so we could get a preview of what it would look like.

But again, you’ll need to trim off those extra bits and imagine with a new 2″ x 2″ piece attached to the bottom of the frame. And then, you can imagine painting the entire base a solid color.