Pull Down Art Desk

Today I am sharing one of my favorite projects.  A kid’s pull down art desk.

It can be so useful and fun!

My second son loves art and drawing so I made this for Christmas last year.

It can be used for homework, or a craft room, or even in a home school room.  It really is a great project, and I love that it takes up no space on the floor, and my son’s art supplies are not left all over the room, they have their own special spot…hidden away.

Here he is Christmas morning checking it out…

He loves to draw monsters and has shared a few 4 foot long monsters!  All drawn and colored from his paper roll at his art desk, of course.

I love that it doubles as a chalk board too, it is fun to leave him messages and he always writes something nice back, such a sweet kid!

I did not take pictures of the build (again pre-blogging days) but you can find the great free plans HERE at Ana-White.com.

I bought the wood in the cull bin at the Home Depot for 51 cents a board, and I only needed a few.  For the front I also scored a piece of MDF for 51 cents in the cull bin and had the nice Home Depot guys cut it for me to the size I needed.  I cut it a little bigger than the plan calls for so I could install the hinges on the outside of the desk.  It worked great that way.  The hinges were rubbing so I notched a space in the board so they could move freely.  You can check out my brag post on Ana’s site HERE.  I also had the moulding on hand (free on craig’s list) to frame out the front.  I love how it turned out!

I tried to spray paint it first, but being too cold it wasn’t working…

See how blochy it was?

Luckily I had gotten a free sample about the same color and I just painted with a foam brush.

You will notice the front piece is taped off…I had painted the board with 3 coats of chalk board paint, and then I nailed on the moulding to frame it out.  I taped off the chalk board to paint the frame and edges.  Not a bad color for free!  I love blue.

Here it is hanging on the wall in his room!

All his new paint supplies inside.  The roll of paper is great, he will unroll and start a drawing, and then just roll it back up if it is not finished.  No loose papers getting lost!

Here is a picture of the side and how he can unhook it and pull it down.  It is very sturdy.

As I explained above I notched out the wood because the hinges were rubbing.  You can also see how the front board is just a bit bigger to allow room for the hinges on the outside.

It really is so fun for him, I have seriously thought about putting one in my craft room…

(I took Ammon down to take some “action shots” and he said “Mom is this going on the blog?” he was so embarrassed!  He did a good job posing, don’t ya think?)

Thanks for stopping by!

Lot of Love,
Mindi

I will be linking to these parties.