This is Day 256 of the Green in 365 series!
By Renee from Joyful Mom, Contributing Writer
I’ll be honest – I love flipping through the pages of a Pottery Barn catalogue. I like looking at all the different rooms on the pages and imagining what I might do in those “perfect” spaces. Then one day it dawned on me that it wasn’t about the perfect spaces… it was everything in those pictures had a “home”. My desire wasn’t to have a perfect looking home – my vision is for organization.
I’ve wanted a desk for years! I have looked and looked but nothing spoke to me – until the day I walked into a furniture resale stored to support our local animal rescue. I fell in love, not with a kitten or a puppy, but this hutch. The cherry color, the curved glass, the size, not too big but not too small. I knew that this was the desk for me.
This is now the place that I do most of my writing, bill paying and keep organized. When I pull the top drawer out I have my planner open (it fits perfectly) and colored pens to stay organized. My laptop fits perfectly.
When I told the store owner what I was using it for, he asked me to show him how to convert other armoires into desks. It really is very easy – if your computer doesn’t fit on the first shelf, you can pull out the top drawer and turn it over (leaving a flat surface) or you can pull out the top drawer and create a mini shelf with a stack of books–a booster seat for your computer.
What do you think? I’d love to hear your stories about how you have used furniture in a new, funky way!

When I close the door–work stops . . . office hours are over! It is a great visual reminder to myself, my husband and the kids.
Find all the Green in 365 posts.
Renee is a wife, mom of 4, writer, speaker, creative artist, joy-seeker, a student of life and a teacher of universal lessons. She writes about it all at Joyful Mom–in everything give thanks.
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We have a big, sturdy piece of furniture that is supposed to be a dining room sideboard. It had been left behind in the apartment where my parents lived when I was born. They repainted it and used it as my changing table when I was a baby. Then it was my brother’s changing table. Then it was my dresser when I was 6-10 years old. Then it was in the laundry room storing miscellany. Then I graduated from college and moved into my first unfurnished place, and my parents were bringing me some furniture and had room in the truck for this sideboard…so I put it in the dining room, and it actually was a dining room sideboard for 6 years, except that we didn’t have many tablecloths and things, so the big drawer was full of CDs and we put the stereo on top. When we moved to our current house, the sideboard didn’t fit well in the dining room, so we put it in our bedroom and stored sweaters and things in it. Then we had a baby and needed a changing table! Now he’s 8 and uses it as his dresser.
Someday I want to strip the layers of white paint off of it. I bet the wood underneath is nice! I wonder how old it is; my guess is pre-World War II because of the extremely solid construction.
I like your armoire used as a desk! And do you sit on the exercise ball while working? I do that in my office (outside the home)–it’s great for the abs and back!
Becca,
I love your story of the side board of many uses! I had always wanted a hutch with curved glass–so when I say this I had to buy it . . .
I do sit on the “chair ball” as the kids call it while I’m writing–I feel like I can sit for a longer time without getting fidgety. My office is a shared space so it is often like musical chairs 🙂
I would love to see a photo of your sideboard. Keep up the up cycling!
Be Blessed.