Vintage Vanity to Modern Desk Redo | {Megan}

Having a nice desk was a big priority for me when moving into my new apartment. It took me a long time to decide what kind of desk I wanted. Buying a new desk wasn't an option because all of the desks I liked were hundreds of dollars. After discussing it with my mom, she offered to let me use an old vanity she had bought a few years ago that she never ended up doing anything with. It was in pretty rough shape so I knew it'd take quite a bit of work. As you can see from this picture, it was missing some pieces and the veneer was coming off in many places. It was a long process but definitely worth it. Here are the steps we took to turn this beat-up old vanity into a modern desk.

1. We decided to make a new top for the desk so the first thing that needed to be done was to take off the top. All we did was unscrew the screws holding it into place.





2. The vanity wasn't as long as I wanted it to be, so next we removed the boards that attached the two drawer pieces together.



3. Once the two drawer pieces were separated we needed to remove the veneer. Veneer is fairly easy to remove with a scraper. Once the veneer was removed, we sanded the wood that was underneath.



4. The vanity was not tall enough to work as a desk so we added a couple of 2x4s to the top of the drawer pieces. We simply cut the pieces to size, glued them down, then secured them with a nail gun.



5. The next step for the drawer pieces was to sand down the drawer fronts and paint them a crisp white. I decided to spray paint the current knobs white as well.



6. While the paint was drying, the next step was to build the desk top. I bought two 8-foot 1x12s at a lumber store and we cut the boards down to 5 feet. We used wood glue and clamps to secure them together.

7. Once the glue was dry, we screwed a 2x4 in the middle of the bottom side to give it extra support.



8. To finish the top of the desk, we added Cabot pecan stain. Once that was dry, we added Tung oil to seal it.

9. Once the top and two bottom pieces were dry, we put them together. We used wood glue and screwed screws into the planks from underneath.

A new desk wouldn't be complete without a chair, so I took a modern green chair and spray painted it with Valspar outdoor spray paint in the color "Jellyfish".



Here's the finished product in my new apartment!: