Office upper cabinets and chairs

 Unfortunately I didn't take picture of the process of the upper cabinets, but here is the down-low. I bought cabinets at IKEA. They are called IVAR cabinets and they are simple, pine, unfinished storage cabinets. I couldn't find them and the store and the kitchen cabinet lady didn't know what I was talking about. So I went over to a catalog (where I had seen them) and showed her. She told me where to find them but not without first making sure I knew they were not worthy to be with the kitchen cabinets. Or something. Major snobbery in that moment. No matter. I got what I wanted they were $80 per double cabinet.

 I added trim on the front. I once again used the long, 5-gallon bucket type stir sticks that are free at the Home Depot. These cabinets had a funny lip on the door...hard to explain. So my trim covered it up. But then, later when I added handles it was a bit of an issue. But no one can tell. HAH! I can't even explain it in a way that would make sense. Painted them "surfer" by Behr, paint plus primer. It covered AMAZING! I was surprised. Sorry, photo doesn't included the handles on the doors. Maybe I will get to it when I build bookshelves for the open areas on the sides.

 I picked up these chairs at the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. My husband, Jeremy, thought I was nuts.

 But I think they turned out great.

Desk thingy part 2

Next steps included: finishing painting, adding legs and hardware.

I swear that I took pictures of staining the top but I guess I didn't. So the top is 5 2x6's that were sanded smooth and then stained with one coat of "Early American" which was redder than I expected so I went over it with a second coat of "Dark Walnut." I like the result. I have not chosen a finish to protect it yet.

The board were laid on top of the bottom sections and then secured by 1x2's underneath to hold them all together. I want to take this with me (if possible) when we sell this house (someday) so that was the least amount of screws and such. Plus, each board is itself pretty heavy. So permanently attaching them together would make it impossible to move.

More pictures to come when I get the finish all done! And I must figure out some plan for the upper part of the wall. We definitely need some more storage and room for books....

Semi-custom, semi-built-in desk area thingy PART 1

Do you ever have this problem in your house? You have "office-type" stuff in about 3 different locations in your house. It is quite annoying to have to look in 3 different places when you need something. I have been dreaming of having it all in one location.

I was dreaming up a desk and was thinking I was going to have to build exactly what I wanted. Then I was getting overwhelmed at the thought. And then a friend said he had an old desk he was going to trash. So we picked it up and I hacked it apart. So I ended up with these two banks of drawers. They are particle board with a melamine veneer.

First order of business was to make them better looking. I scuffed them up so stuff could stick to them.

 Then I got the genius idea of using **FREE** paint sticks as the trim. They are the larger ones for stirring 5 gallon buckets.

 I glued these with liquid nails.

Used a little caulk to clean up the edges.

 The banks of drawers were too short to be desk height. So I needed to add some height. I wanted more drawers anyway so I added some height at the top giving room for another drawer as well. I used this old particle board from my pantry shelves.

 I made a height extension with three sides. 2 sides and a back. It would be best to screw and glue to the bottom cabinet but the way mine was constructed made it not really possible. So it is just glued. But don't worry. A little reinforcement comes later.

Front view.

Then I made a drawer to fit the space. Bought simple drawer slides from the hardware store.

 I used MDF to make drawer fronts for the new drawers so they could match the old drawers. I used the same dimensions for the drawer front so everything looked consistent.

  This is after I had also primed the older drawers.

I needed a third bank of drawers so that I could construct an office area with 2 workstations. I used MDF and built it to fit 2 pullouts that I had leftover from the pantry project.

 Made a matching drawer front for the upper pullout. The lower area will have 2 doors. Haven't gotten to that part yet.

The sides were mismatched and ugly so they got some beadboard. Attached with liquid nail and brad nails. And they needed a little reinforcement since the top section was only glued on.

And this is where we conclude for today...