the desk

I’ve written about this desk elsewhere. It works really well as a kitchen/storage area. Using an existing piece of furniture was less expensive and time-consuming than building something from scratch. And now this desk that has sentimental value for Doug (his dad gave it to him when he was a kid) gets a new life in our home.

First, Doug refinished all the surfaces — sanding it and putting on a couple fresh coats of polyurethane. “It’s just so satisfying,” he said. “It just shines and brings out all the natural beauty of the wood.”

Next came the actual installation.

Doug says: I put a stud directly into the van wall to screw the desk into. I could have put anchor nuts into the wall and bolted right in. But making holes line up between two surfaces is an endeavor, especially when it’s the inside of a desk that doesn’t come apart, cause you can’t reach around and measure.

In other words, work smarter not harder. The next step was accounting for the inward slant of the van walls. Doug did this with a pair of stanchions that fill the gap and make a flat surface for the desk to sit flush against.

Doug says: I feel like I could have done this more efficiently, but it kind of just attests to how I never really drew up any kind of complex plans for the layout. But now these stanchions help hold up very useful pantry shelves.