~diy charging station~{thrifty thursday}

I am so excited to share with you this weeks thrifty Thursday project. 

In our kitchen we have a little desk where our computer sits. It's not a huge area and it gets cluttered easily. My main complaint about the space is not only the lack of organization, but also all the messy cords that come with the computer, cameras, etc. 

So, I found a way to tackle both problems with one simple solution.

While thrifting one day I spotted these wood drawers.

I believe the are originally from Ikea but I couldn't find them on their website.

Anyway, they seemed to be the perfect size, with a hideous paint job, but I knew I could fix that.

And for $4.99 each, they were too good to pass up.

The first thing I did was strip the paint off.

I used Citristrip.

After letting it sit for 30 minutes I scraped off the paint, only to find it had been stained red underneath all the paint.

So, I took them outside in the freezing cold and sanded them down to the wood.

It took way longer than I expected, but in the end, I am happy I went to all the work.

I had some stain leftover from our kitchen floor, so I used that and then waxed them for durability with Annie Sloan Clear wax.

The last step was to add new hardware.

I found mine at Target.

They were around $5 a piece and came in a 2 pack.

I don't see them on their website either and I didn't think to get a picture of the package. 

So sorry!

Once the whole piece was dry and the new hardware was on, I drilled a hole in the side to allow for my camera cord to come through the back and out the side.

Then I cut a rectangle with a jig saw in through the back and then again through the back of the top right drawer.

It's really sloppy, but this is what it looked like after I cut through the back.

The reason for doing this was so that when I put my computer back on top, I could feed all the lengths of wires through this, allowing them to stay tucked in the top right drawer, out of sight.

Would you to see my new charging station that, by the way, has 3 functional drawers for paperwork?

A clutter free desk!

love

{and yes, I did paint over my giant chalkboard, more on that shortly}

Have a wonderful day! 

xoxo