I’m a total sucker for repurposing and salvaging old materials (like the crafty craft cabinet I told you all about here), so when Tonya wrote in about the DIY projects she conquered with a pair of old doors I was hooked from the start.
It all started when Tonya switched out the boring old double doors to her office with some gorgeous new French doors:
Tonya really wanted an L-shaped desk for the office, but everything she could find was way more expensive than she wanted. So, she took matters into her own hands and created a huge, functional (and affordable) L-shaped desk out of . . . you guessed it . . . the original doors to the office!
Here’s what Tonya did and how she did it:
Materials – $80 total:
~ 2 doors (free with the house)
~ 2 filing cabinets (1 already on hand, another from Wal-Mart for $30)
~ 4 table legs from Lowe’s ($30 total)
~ black lacquer spray paint ($10)
~ heavy duty double stick tape
~ 3 table leg brackets ($8 total)
How-to:
1. Those old doors were spray painted a shiny black and became the work surface for the new desk.
2. The doors were laid in an L-shape, with the top of one door overlapping the other door. Table legs supported one end of each door, and the filing cabinets held up the other ends – and the filing cabinets were secured to the doors with that double stick tape!!
3. Tonya used the old doorknob holes to her advantage, utilizing one hole to corral all the computer cords – the other hole was filled with a pencil holder and functioned as a built-in pen and pencil holder!
After Tonya got a few years of enjoyment out of her desk, she decided to sell her house – and she was able to get yet another use out of her old doors! She turned the office into this gorgeous dining room . . .
. . . and made a kitchen table on the fly by cutting one of the old doors in half, adding a fourth leg, and draping the door with pretty material – voila, instant kitchen table!
Talk about getting some serious use out of two old doors! I have a few old doors lying around and now I’m just dying to make a desk of my very own! Have you guys ever made something cool out of old doors?
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What a creative reuse of doors! I love the desk project and how she re-reused a door to make a kitchen table. Great thinking!
Wow she certainly is crafty! Thanks for sharing with us!
Tonya is a total wizard! I’m seriously impressed, particularly on using the doorknob holes for cords or pen holders. Maybe I wasn’t being so totally foxy when I recovered the seats of the dining room chairs!
There are some cool specialty paints on the market where one can paint a door with “blackboard” type paint and use the door for reminders or impromptu art. Also, there is blackboard looking paint that has has inclusions that make it magnetic, so the door can be used as a bulletin board. Nifty products available!
Very impressed! I totally hear Tonya re expensive desks — any well-priced desk is invariably tiny and/or poorly built. Smart girl to just make on herself!
Hi! This is great and I would like to try it but I am wondering if you know if she was able to use hollow core doors or if she used solid doors?
Julia,
While hollow core doors have enough wood to hold some screws and nails, I’d shy away from using thin table legs as the only support – collapsing desks are never any fun! However, using something more substantial like the file cabinets as support on both ends of the door would be great! Hope this helps. :)
~ Liz