After we made the skirted tables
for my sister's wedding, I knew that we needed one to use as a desk for the office. It took a little convincing to get Wes on board -- I think he was hung up on the word "skirt," which clearly wasn't fit for his man room/office. I eventually wore him down by e-mailing him inspirational photos every other day and threatening to never make him pancakes again.
Not only did he change his mind, but he upped the anty and really improved on the original project by building a super-sturdy desk that fits our needs perfectly (and it looks pretty darn good, too). He's so handy.
You'll have to ask him if you want to know more about the measurements, but the desk is basically two boxes made by 2-by-4s and 2-by-3s and connected in the middle, with a piece of 3-quarter-inch plywood on top. He researched ready-made desk sizes to come up with the measurements for height and depth.
And he used the sizes of the two plastic drawers we bought to decide on the width. He was worried about storage, but with these babies (which we picked up at Target, for under $30 for both), we have more storage than in the old desk.
The rest of the project was basically free since we used lumber left over from other projects, and the cotton-duck fabric from the previously-mentioned wedding tables. We did have the plywood cut to size at Lowe's. Since the desk is so much shorter, it wasn't a problem that I had cut my yardage into pieces. By the way, I used about five yards of a very wide fabric (the bolt was probably more than 54 inches) to make this skirt.
I didn't take any photos of the beginning of skirting the desk, so refer back to
the post on the tables for that. Basically, I stapled the top of the fabric around the edge of the plywood, creating a crease in the middle where two pieces of fabric meet.
If I had a sewing machine/knew how to sew, I would have hemmed the bottom first. Instead, I'll use my fabric glue to hem the bottom, using the floor to help me keep a straight line.
To make a pleat at the sides, I wrapped the fabric around and stapled at the corner, and then again about two inches from the corner.
Then, I folded the fabric back and brought the folded edge to the corner and stapled it down. I made sure that my fold wasn't too deep that the rest of the fabric wouldn't make it to the end of the side.
When stapling the skirt to the top, it's not necessary to staple to the very edge of the desk, or to staple super close together. I put about one staple every two-to-three inches.
To cover the top, I hung the fabric face-down on the front of the desk, and stapled as close to the edge as possible, as often as possible.
Then I folded the fabric back toward the back of the desk and secured along the back with a couple of staples.
To make the sides neat, I trimmed the fabric so there was about three-quarters of an inch on each side, then folded it under and secured it with fabric glue.
And there you have it! All that's left is the finish the bottom (which could be interesting) and have a piece of glass cut for the top to make a better work surface, and to protect the fabric. I'm thinking about putting a trim tape along the bottom of the skirt -- maybe Greek key?
Next, I think I'd like to try a round or hexagon-shaped table for our breakfast room.
This table (in a foyer designed by Tom Sheerer, spotted yesterday on
La Dolce Vita) is my inspiration.
