Last week Andrea let me spend the money we would have spent on a new desk for her office space on a new Ryobi table saw and a belt/disc sander as well as some wood to build a desk.
The problem is that if you go to a furniture store you can spend well over 250$ and end up with a particle board desk that you still have to put together. I have a dresser that my great-grandfather built that is still being used day-in-day-out. It is a family heirloom at the same time as it is practical. The real thing is just so much better than something from an assembly line.
| Particle Board Desk | Handmade Desk | |
| Desk Materials | 250.00 (kit made by Sauder) | 70.00 (Home Depot) |
| Tools | 0 | 230.00 |
| Effort to Construct | 1-1.5 hours | 10 hours |
| Intrinsic value | Goodwill Fodder | Priceless |
| Actual Value | Goodwill Fodder | 300.00-350.00 |
I spent a little over a hundred per tool and then 70$ on the wood. Nice thing is is we have the tools now for future projects.
Andrea had never experienced the hobby called wood-burning. I grew up doing it. We decided to dig my old wood-burning iron out of the toolbox and use it to add some interesting embellishments to the desk. I got started doing the wood-burning but she took over and ended up doing most of it. She is quite good at it.
I have not done a lot of woodworking for about a decade but the skills do come back. I am hoping to build many other things in the future. I’d like to build a Teardrop camper and some bunk beds for our kids.
Here you can see the finished product. We are pretty proud of it, we finished it up just in time for the 7-year anniversary of the day I asked Andrea out, which incidentally is our 6.5 year wedding anniversary.
In this first photo you can see the desk finished with her computer setup on it and everything. We are going to setup a cork board on the wall behind it for her to organize coupons notes etc.
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