Once again, I was inspired by Young House Love when I saw their DIY 13-foot counter. Originally I really wanted to get the Bedford desk collection from Pottery Barn because I knew I could build on to the collection if I needed to and the color / design was just what I had in mind. Then I remembered my mom had a custom built desk in her office using Lowe's kitchen cabinets so I decided to combine snippets of these ideas into one.

The wall in my studio was only 12 feet, so we settled on a length of 12 feet instead. We ventured down the road to Lowe's where dad picked through the large pile of lumber and pulled out the best looking 12-foot 2" x 10"s he could find. Rather than assembling several pieces of lumber, we simply bought four pieces of lumber at the full 12' length. JD and dad set up two sawhorses in the garage and placed the pieces of lumber on top, ready for me to sand away. After sanding, I stained the backs and sides of the planks using PolyShades Antique Walnut Satin.

We carried the four planks into my office, setting them on top of a couple of scrap lumber pieces and two large pieces of plastic (since I would be staining the top part). They assembled the four planks by drilling three pieces of plywood into the back. Please note that they are totally rockin' the headlamps.

We carefully flipped the super heavy desktop over and I stained 2 coats on the top side.

We bought three unfinished cabinets from Lowe's for the drawers. Though this wasn't as money-savvy as the Young House Love bottom cabinets from the thrift store, they were WAY more money-savvy than the Pottery Barn cabinets (and more practical too). The middle is an unfinished base sink cabinet and the other two are unfinished drawer base cabinets. I sanded them down a little and painted on a few coats of Dover White (Sherwin Williams) in the garage.

Our neighbors graciously helped us carry the cabinets into my studio as half of us lifted the desktop while the other half placed the cabinets into their rightful position. {Have I mentioned lately how thankful we are for our neighbors?!}

Mom, Elizabeth (neighbor) and I stood in the back of the room, examining this creation we had assembled.

"Aren't the cabinets a little tall for an actual desk? Normally desks are a little lower to the ground, right?" asked Elizabeth.

"Ooooh yeah. I forgot to mention that we had to custom order the cabinet bases for my office so they would be short enough for a desk size," laughed mom.

"Aww man," was all I could say at the moment as I began sweating profusely. I really thought we messed up.

But in reality, it's perfect. I stand up anyways when I cut materials for sewing or other projects so it's helped to prevent the back pain I felt from bending over using the other desk. In fact, I prefer standing during most of my work. Somehow it gives me a steadier hand. Plus the desk fits perfectly under the windowsill and couldn't be at a better height for decor purposes.

I'm currently on the hunt for an industrial chair (vintage, please!) for the smaller nook of the desk.

After everything was set up, I lined the drawers in these lovely Laura Ashley Shelf Liners.

Then I drilled holes for the knobs and handles we picked out from Lowe's. I debated between getting the simple knobs from Lowe's or getting some funky ones from Hobby Lobby, but the threading from the knobs at Hobby Lobby stick out pretty far in desk drawers. I was going for looks and practicality with this studio. As clumsy as I am, I'd have scars on my hands from reaching into the drawers with Hobby Lobby knobs. But they sure are precious!

I digress.

We settled on these knobs from Lowe's. :)