Last April, my mom surprised me with World Market's Josephine Desk for my birthday (thanks, Mom!):

I love the desk as-is but lately I've been thinking about adding a little something to it to make it more unique. I love the look of campaign desks but hate how much they cost and trying to find a vintage one on my city's Craigslist is like trying to find a needle in a haystack - impossible:

[ Images via Style Hive ]

[ Image via 1st Dibs ]

Anyway, the more I looked at campaign desks, the more I started noticing how similar the style of my Josephine Desk was to them. That's when my DIY light bulb went off!

Feeling inspired, I went to Ace to see what kind of campaign-esque hardware they had and ended up coming home with the following:

3 packs of 4 1-1/2" x 3/8" brass corner braces (later updated to 4) - $3.49/each:

And 2 brass lion head pulls - $3.79/each:

Which I used to create my DIY version of a campaign desk:

Side note: I know the pulls I chose for my desk aren't true campaign style pulls but every pull that I found that looked like a real campaign pull required a chunk of the drawer to be cut out so the pull could be recessed into it. I didn't feel comfortable with that idea so I passed on buying real campaign style pulls and bought the ones I felt more comfortable with (and liked more!) instead :)

Before I show you any more after photos, let me explain what I did first for those that would like to DIY a campaign desk of their own!

You may have noticed in the photo above that the corner braces I got from Ace have "Ace" stamped into one side:

I didn't want my desk to look like it was sponsored by their company so I simply flipped them over so I could use the non-branded side on my desk.

To start attaching the braces to my desk, I held one of them up to the corner and used it as a template to drill a 3/32" pilot hole through one of the bracket's holes:

Then I screwed one of the brass screws that came with the braces into the newly drilled pilot hole to hold the corner brace in place:

This made it easier for me to drill the other 3 pilot holes into the desk:

After the remaining 3 pilot holes were drilled, I screwed 3 more brass screws into the holes and just like that, my first corner brace was in place!:

Then I repeated the same steps above to attach the remaining 15 braces. I attached 4 corner braces to each side of the desk:

Right side:

Left side:

3 to the left side of the drawer on the front of the desk (since I had already attached the top left one):

And 4 to the right side of the drawer on the front of the desk:

Once the braces were attached, I eyeballed where I wanted my lion head pulls to go (7 1/2" in from the left and right, 1/2" down from the top) and then I drilled two, 9/64" pilot holes into the front of the drawer so I could screw two screws into the drawer from the back (one for each pull), and attach my lion head pulls:

[ Please excuse the night time photos :) ]

Once the pulls were attached, my DIY campaign style desk was complete!

 

Why yes, I am using a slice of agate as my mousepad :)

How about a little before and after action?

Before:



After:



Now let's do a little budget breakdown, just for fun:

• Josephine Desk - Already owned (It'd be $139.99 if you were to buy one today)
• 4 packs of 4 brass corner braces @ $3.49/each = $13.96
• 2 lion head pulls @ $3.79/each = $7.58
• TOTAL: $21.54!!!

What do you think of the transformation? Are you going to DIY some campaign furniture of your own?

I'm sharing this project on: House of Hepworths, AKA Design, and One Project Closer