I want to apologise in advance for the not so lovely Instagram filters used on these photo's. They are from 2013, which was when my whole Instagram feed was pretty much all filtered with 'Valencia'.
I decided to put together this blogpost as after sharing my office tour video, I got so many comments and messages going along the lines of 'I wish my craft space was like that' or 'I wish my desk was that big' or 'I could never afford all of that'. So I thought it'd be fun to show you exactly where I started my craft journey, 5 years ago.
My first 'proper' craft desk that I bought for myself was second hand, from eBay. I say 'proper' as I would use the downstairs dining table, or my old desk I had for school/college & my laptop. But this was the first desk that I hunted down, bought by myself, and where I kept pretty much only craft stuff. At the time I still had my old school/college desk for my laptop, but this desk was craft supplies only.
I don't remember exactly how much I paid for it, I want to say £50-£70, I highly doubt I would have paid much more back then. It arrived pretty damaged, and 'not as described' so I think I even got a bit more money knocked off.
In transit a corner of the top section was broken, the door knobs weren't attached to the doors at all (making them a right faff to get into for the first time) and probably the biggest unexpected issue was the top section of the desk wasn't even attached to the main bit (see bottom right photo).
Regardless I knew I wanted to up-cycle it a bit anyway, so these little jobs were just added to my up-cycling list.
Now, I didn't want a purple desk. When I was hunting for a desk, colour was the last thing I was looking at. In my mind as long as the style is what I was looking for, then the colour can always be changed. At the time I was very much into the 'shabby chic' style, my bedroom was all cream, with flowers and girly vibes. So ultimately I wanted to paint this desk a cream colour.
First step was sanding it down. This was probably the most time consuming and exhausting part, because I didn't have an electric sander. Even if I did, I don't think I would have wanted to use it, because I wouldn't want to risk ruining any detail.
I wasn't trying to get the colour off, I simple wanted to rough up the surfaces to make sure when I painted it, that the paint wouldn't come off.
(please excuse one of my dad's 'craft' projects in the background. He turned the go kart he made us into a plane, to race at a village fete)
So this was what it looked like after I'd finished sanding. Not the best looking desk around, but you can see it's cute quirks that drew me in when I was searching eBay. I don't know how old it is, and I don't think it had any makers marks or anything. But it's definitely had a couple of paint jobs in it's time before me. I loved all the different sized storage spaces, and also the fact that it wasn't rectangular.
Once I was done with sanding, I started painting it. This was very satisfying to do, especially the first coat. I think it took 2 or 3 coats to cover it completely, and I didn't paint the underneath or anywhere you weren't going to see. By this point I'm pretty sure I was already planning out where I was going to store what, and I also had to figure out where I was going to put it in my bedroom as it wasn't a massive space to work with.
This is an awful photo, but it's the only one I've got of it after I finished painting it, and before I filled it with all my stuff. The only thing I never fixed on it, was the top section. I never attached the top section to the bottom, it worked out well because when I moved house it was a lot easy to pack the two sections separately.
Everything else though, I managed to fix up and I was very happy with the outcome!
At the time of getting this desk I wasn't journaling at all, I was obsessed with penpalling & happy mail, so this became my writing desk. It's really not got much space to craft on (as my craft supplies grew, I realised this), but for writing letters it was the perfect size.
This was how I had all my craft supplies stored back then, and believe it or not these were all the craft supplies I had (give or take a few things shoved in boxes that I couldn't really get to, so I never used the supplies in them)
So for anyone saying 'I'll never afford that much craft stuff', or 'I wish I had a desk like that' etc.
This is where I started, this is what I started with, and over the past 5 years, I've accumulated everything you saw in my office tour video! It's been a gradually growth and my creative space has been something I've always worked on.
Hopefully that's answered a few of those questions and comments I received! Maybe it's also inspired you to have a search for a second hand desk!
- Daisy X
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