Assembling a New Old Desk

A long while back, Liz purchased a vintage/restored chemistry/lab table. Her goal was to use this as her sewing desk, with an eye to have it in our upstairs office area.

Well… the upstairs is very much under construction. So we’ve just had it stored on the first floor, taking up space.

This weekend, we started to clean up the first floor some more… and made a move to actually set this desk up, for Liz to use as her actual work desk.

Silly story – directly behind where Liz was working, we had a few sheets of plywood and drywall. Earlier this winter, we had a lot of squirrel activity on our roof and chimney, so much so that one squirrel in particular fell down our chimny and emerged (mostly unscathed) in our dining room.

After a bit of screaming and chasing around, we found him tucked behind the plywood and drywall sheets. In fact, he had climbed his way up the wall and was trying to… well, I have no idea what he was trying to do. Escape through the window?

Whatever he was trying to do, he left a lot of sooty paw prints. Which I finally got to clean today.

Liz, moving one of the many, many drawers that this desk has (16 in total).

Cleaning the drawers.

Liz, contemplating all the new real estate she’s got to work with.

One big issue: given the thickness of the table top and the drawers underneath, it’s difficult for Liz to position herself underneath the desk.

We learned there was no good configuration to be had, because the distance between the table top and the bottom of the drawer was just too much – and not really something that could be solved by any chair.

We debated kneeling chairs, but are trying to figure out some alternate solution. This may ultimately be a great sewing table to work over (while standing)… but may be a harder table to use, when sitting.

Related:
New Desk
Honey? Honey, Can You Come Home? I’ve Found Something.