Any idea where to get a decent writing desk, cheap?

[Cecilia_Rose]

Originally Posted by mawipafl

I echo Cecilia_Rose .. you can make your own and you don't have to be a master craftsman to do it.

The one I made I slapped together with two two-drawer file cabinets topped by a piece of 3/4" MDF that I had the Home Depot guys cut to size for me (was cheap to have them do it.) I took the lazy way out and just covered the desk top writing surface with contact paper.

I could have made it more "elaborate" by painting the desk top white to match the file cabinets (they were white metal) or by purchasing wooden file cabinets and staining the desk top to match their color.

If I had wanted to get real fancy, I could have purchased decorative moulding and trims (available at home improvement stores) and glued them onto the edges of the MDF and/or onto the file cabinets.

The desk is a tad lower than normal writing desks, but since I'm short anyway, it works for me. But I could have purchased newel post caps (round ones or pointed ones, both of which are found in the deck supply section in any home improvement store) and glued them as feet to the bottom of the file cabinets.

The best part about creating my own was that I could make it whatever size I wanted, thus not restricted to depth nor length of writing desks available in-store for purchase.

Hey Mawi. Nice meet another DIYer. Been there done all that. People would be surprized at what you can throw together if you just thnk outside the box a little.

Getting the size you want is a nice bonus. Another nice thing is that you can build something huge but when you move it breaks down into smaller pieces. And if you move a lot its not hard to change it around to fit the new place.

[mawipafl]

Originally Posted by Cecilia_Rose

People would be surprized at what you can throw together if you just think outside the box a little.

Absolutely! And that's why I echoed your suggestion to the OP. With ingenuity and little effort, it's incredible what can be accomplished by re-purposing things. We've used newel post caps made for decks as feet for our sleep sofa (replacing the wimpy legs), and feet for a trash-picked coffee table to raise it higher for a TV stand. We've taken decorative mouldings and glued them onto oh-so-boring hollow-core closet doors to make them fancy and eye-catching. My favorite re-purposing project, which we ended up doing ourselves because three different kitchen designers said it couldn't be done without the high-cost of customization, was to build cabinetry around a window using stock wall cabinets as base cabinets (raised up with our favorite newel post cap feet :-)

So, I love my slapped-together writing desk. It was originally 7' 3 1/2" long to fit into a space like a built-in. In our next house it was too long, so out came the circular saw to chop off the end of the desk top to fit in a 6' space.

[madisonmamma]

Target has a great line of furniture both in the stores and even more online, and it is very reasonable. They actually have a Thomasville line, and have many different styles available.