Tuesday, February 16, 2010

New Desk Area and Dollar Store Pails

This is my old desk area, my trusty red desk.  A wonderful red desk, it has been mine forever, my childhood desk.  When I needed somewhere to put my laptop, I painted my desk red and put it in the kitchen.  It has served me well all these years but it was time to retire this poor desk

















Welcome to my new desk area, isn't wonderful?  Cabinets from a local cabinetmaker and very reasonable.  Two desk areas for the girls to do homework and projects.



















I needed something for all the pens, pencils, highlighters and Sharpies.  I found these pails at Dollar Tree:



















In the Pottery Barn catalog, you see things numbered quite a bit.  So I thought that would be perfect for these pails.  I bought stencils, since I can't paint a straight line but the stencils were 4" tall and I needed 3" stencils.  Lucky for me the girls' best friend was over last weekend.  She is quite the artist, so I asked her to paint numbers on the pails for me.  I think she thought I was crazy, but did it very quickly.   She outlined the numbers and Meredith painted the inside:










Here is a bigger view of the desk with the pails.  I am still working on what to put behind the glass doors.




















Here is what the desk area was before:













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19 comments:

  1. WOW!! What a great "After" shot. I'd kill for a workspace like that. :) I love the numbered buckets and two thumbs up for you for letting the kiddos help. ;)

    I'm visiting from Holly's PB Knock-Off Party. Here's my link:
    http://serenitynow4amanda.blogspot.com/2010/02/pottery-barn-inspired-kids-table.html

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  2. Oh my goodness, I love your new desk area! The pails are great, and so much cuter with the numbers.
    Thanks for joining my party...do me a favor and add my link to your post, k?

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  3. what a transformation....I have pails I plan on doing this to when its warm enough to spray paint

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  4. Love it! Much better use of the space than before!

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  5. It looks really nice. I like your number buckets -adds a funky touch.

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  6. Very nice! I need to do something with our desk area. It is a mess and lots of wires. I'm thinking Ikea, but yours looks so much better.

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  7. What a difference! You are quite the decorator.

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  8. Wow, what a great transformation! That really was a good use of the space and love the new cabinets. Very nice!

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  9. It looks so nice and such a comfortable place for homework.

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  10. Very attractive but most importantly-functional!

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  11. oh I love this little desk area -- can't wait to look thru the rest of your blog!

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  12. I love home dec before and afters! Functional and beautiful!

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  13. Great job! That work space looks so wonderful and the pails are a perfect finishing touch!

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  14. I love those cabinets, great storage and space to display pretty things too!

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  16. Looks great!

    Here's how I come up with stencils - print the letter/# on my computer and cut it out, using the white paper as the stencil. You know you can use Format at the top of Microsoft Word to be able to type in the size of the font much larger than available on the toolbar!

    I've used this type of "stencil" for many projects.

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  17. Looking forward to seeing what kind of lovely fabric you put up on the walls inside those glass cabinets. Hope the little red desk found a happy new home. Bet it did. It always helps to think that somebody else will use it!

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  18. cute.cute.cute
    :o) trish

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