Desk from a Door
Saturday, January 3, 2009 at 12:15 AMI've been needing a new desk, but not bad enough to buy one. When Jef replaced our back door a few weeks ago, we ended up with a spare door and that solved the problem. A door desk! My mom and Roger have been using those for years since they're easy to build, easy to break down.
Of course, I had to get all crafty. Here's a recap of the project.
This is my OLD desk. I got it at a second-hand store when we first moved to Austin. Jef thinks I'm crazy, but I really liked it. Look at the cute handles! But you see the board RIGHT where your legs go? That was a problem. And it was small (but so was our apartment when we first moved here!). Anyway, it found a great home via Craigslist w/in MOMENTS of my posting it. Yay!
The door, freshly painted: 
Bird stencils: 
Spray painting the stencils. 
More spray painting: 
The finished product! 
Closeup of the birdies: 
A few notes about the project. I'm notoriously bad at spray painting. I can never get the technique right, how heavy, how light, how far away. So the stencils came out different than I expected, but still very cute. We got the desk legs from Ikea. They were $15 each and we plan to add a piece of plywood to the bottom to create a shelf. They had some legs with that piece already added, but it was an extra $25 per leg! No thanks, Ikea. We'll DIY that one. ;) Oh, last thing. There were two holes left where we removed the deadbolt and knob - we put those closest to the wall and they are perfect for dropping wires thru to the floor! I think doors were meant to be desks if you ask me.
Reader Comments (8)
What a fantastic idea! I really like your new desk.
Thanks, Ana! I'm really happy with it. I need some more storage since I lost the desk drawers, but that won't be hard. Also, this thing is HUGE! I'm loving all space.
Nice! Guess that won't work with a raised panel door? That Jef dude is very handy indeed. I love the stencils - and I agree - hard to do.
A raised panel door actually WOULD work - in fact, that's what we were looking for originally, but couldn't find anything on Craigslist. You would just need to get a piece of glass or Plexiglas for the top to make it a nice even surface. That would add considerably to the price, but you could get VERY creative w/ the door itself - paint each section a different color, add wallpaper or photos to the panels, etc.. You can do that w/ a flat door as well, but we stuck w/ paint to keep the cost down.
Nicely done! The raised panel idea is dead-on -- seems like the CEO of a marketing company in Austin has something done that way... :-)
The key with the non-panel doors is to use a solid core door. Years ago, there was a photo lab going out of business at 38th and Lamar. Photo lab = lots of small rooms. As they were doing the demo work, several of us snagged some doors (we asked first). I got a 28" door and a 36" door. Rather than painting them, I got some plastic laminate and some contact cement and gave them an entirely new surface. Then, I added 1.5" wood edging (stained) around the sides, and I filled in the door knob hole (singular -- they were interior doors) with some gray pipe to finish out the grommet (actually, I put the pipe in first so that the laminate would come over the edge cleanly).
With two doors, we were able to make a monster L-shaped desk that lasted through three houses. In our current house, we're down to just using the deeper slab for the desk...and it's slated for replacement. But, they lasted over a decade and cost me less than $30 in materials, so no complaints!
Looks awesome! Where did you get the filing drawers under the desk? I love them!
Looking at the Ikea website you pointed to, is the door just laying across those? It strikes me as unsteady. I make this assumption because you described the door-desk as easy to break down. Would you mind elabourating on that aspect of the construction?
Thanks for everyone's comments!
LW - I got the filing cabinet a few years ago at a Staples or regular office supply store. I tried to find a link, but I'm not finding anything at the moment. I had metal cabinets before and it got pretty beat up after a few moves. I went with plastic, knowing it might not look as sleek, but it seemed better suited to my lifestyle.
THOR - The legs have rubber stoppers on top of them, and the desk is sitting right on top. If you have a good, heavy door, this should be fine, but it can definitely move if you have a rough and tumble office. :) Another way to go is to get two filing cabinets and put the desk on those. They still aren't technically secured, but the 'base' is much broader.
Hope this helps!