I wanted to make my great niece a sandpit for when she comes to my house but wanted to make something that would look great as well.

Step 1:

I saw this lovely desk on my local for sale site for $20.00. I was really excited about restoring it. But when I went to pick it up I was a bit disappointed because it had been given a very deep shabby chic look. There was no way I could restore it without spending many hours sanding. So I decided that I would repurpose it instead.

Step 2:

I found a plastic container that was large enough to hold the sand. I measured to get the the centre of the desk and marked out my hole that I wanted to cut out to accommodate the plastic container and used a jig saw to cut out the centre.

Step 3:

Because she is under 2 years old and not very tall I wanted to lower the desk so she would be able to reach the sand, so I cut a section of the bottom off.

Step 4:

I cut a spare piece of wood to add under the desk to hide the plastic container just for cosmetic purposes and removed the face of the top draw so that I could glue it back on without the draw so that the container could fit in. The second draw was repaired and the third was removed.

I sanded down all the rough edges and added dark mahogany stain and 2 coats of external varnish for some outdoor protection. I glued the top draw back on, and fitted the draw back in, which will be the storage for all her sand toys. And when she is finished playing the lid gets put back on and the sand stays clean. The chair was made from the off cuts from the desk and the legs, were from and old table I repurposed in a previous project.
To see more of my project go to www.uniquecreationsbyanita.com