Creating The Look For Less

For the first time in our home owning lives, we have an office. In the past, our guest bedroom doubled as an office. Although it's really nice to have a separate room to set up... the downside is that it's a separate room to set up! In May, I painted the office this really pretty navy blue color. I love the way it turned out, but it's just been sitting there painted for two months now waiting to be put together.

So, it turns out that office furniture can be expensive! It further complicates things when you have Pottery Barn tastes on a Craig's List budget! I love the look of this corner desk from Pottery Barn...

And I love the look of this desk with hutch... also from Pottery Barn.

And if I were to order all of the pieces of both to fit the wall and corner of my office, I would be spending $3,750 ... not including tax & shipping! Okay, so I don't like it that much! Geesh! I'm running through the list of things I would rather spend $3,750 on (if I had it) other than office furniture... I think the front runner is some kind of RV... but moving on...

Like I said before... Craig's List budget! About three months ago I bought this desk and hutch combo from someone on Craig's List for $60. This is the picture from the Craig's List listing...

It has a cabinet (cleverly disguised as drawers), drawers, a sliding keyboard tray and a few other customizations. It was in REALLY good condition! I couldn't believe they were selling it for $60. Even though it looks like knobs were missing, they had just been taken off and were in a drawer. But, alas... this was not the look I was going for. So, I have spent the better part of this past week PAINTING this entire thing. My husband and I also removed the back panel of the hutch and installed a bead board panel instead. I also removed the cabinet doors on the hutch in favor of a more open look.

Now, since I want to have a corner section similar to the desk from Pottery Barn that I like so much, I removed the desk top, and removed the molding on the bottom side of the desk base. My husband is building me some modular base sections to "add on" to the existing desk and we'll put a new desk top across the whole thing. So, I'm not going to show you what the desk looks like just yet...because I want to put it all together before I reveal my "after" picture. So, sorry to keep you waiting, but I'm so excited to finally cross painting this sucker off my list that it deserved its own post! We are thinking that between the $60 for the desk, the $20 for the bead board, another $100 in wood for the additional pieces and the hardware, we are going to come in right around $200 total. Not bad for a totally customized piece of furniture that will fit our office and craft storage and work space needs!