yes, I AM pathetic

I have been so terrible about updates here! I do have a valid excuse though.. I am on a spending freeze! I can't buy fun cheap things for a while :( Isn't that so sad? I remembered something I could write about though. Not too long ago my husband and I did a DIY desk for our office. Our inspiration? what else... Pottery Barn. This desk has been around for a while and I have been drooling over it from the very minute I saw it.

by the way, they have changed the picture for this desk about 4 times (at least) since they came out with it.

Anyway, it is sold in pieces and you can choose what you want. I wont give you a complete run-down of the prices (you can find that on their website), but lets just say that the SMALL corner desk top (desk top ALONE.. nothing to hold it up) is ON SALE for $219. Yikes.

JCPenney can always be counted on for a good pottery barn knock-off. Here's theirs:

It also comes in white, which I happen to prefer. Theirs is also sold as components and their corner desktop is on sale for $149 BUT they throw in a single leg ;) So if you can magically balance a desk on one leg, you wont have to buy any more of the components!

Alright.. onto the cool part. Here is my desk in my personal office (please keep in mind my office is FAR from finished and PLEASE ignore the mismatched chairs.. and yes, my office really IS orange):



Alright.. here is the run-down on our desk and the pricing.

the "legs" are cubes stacked on top of each other. They were purchased at Target but Michael's has some almost identical ones for SLIGHTLY more expensive. Ours were around the range of $25. Some were a few dollars less, some were a few dollars more so we're just going to say $25 each and make it easy. We purchased 8 of them.

The desk top was all made out of ONE large sheet of wood that cost us about $10. We had it cut at the store for us.

We purchased a long piece of wood and cut it up to make two legs for the corner part of the desk to support it there. That only cost about $2.

Then there was the paint. That was about $20.

Lastly were brackets because the longest part of the desktop is two pieces put together and then the short part was another piece. We needed to put them together to have it lay flat and stay together. That cost about $3.

so the run-down:

Cubes- $25 x 8 = $200
wood for desktop- $10
wood for legs- $2
paint- $20
brackets- $3
labor- free ;)

for a total approx. cost of:
$235

and that is for a HUGE desk that takes up an entire wall on one side and a large part of a second wall with tons of storage. For that, you can barely get one small part of a desktop at Pottery Barn.. IF it's on sale :)

So kids, what have we learned today? DIY, if you can do it (and trust me, everyone can do something like this.. it didn't take ANY carpentry skills) and you will save lots of $$ in the end.