Craft Desk Makeover with Contact Paper

Farmhouse Meets Funky Craft Desk Makeover

Today I’m sharing how to give a craft desk a complete makeover with contact paper and some floral fabric.

It’s super important for a craft room to be a practical place to work, but for me these days it feels just as important for it to be pretty too.

So my craft room is getting a face lift, starting with my craft desk and the area surrounding it.

So today I’ll show you how to give a desk a contact paper makeover; how to hang some non-stick wallpaper without wallpaper paste; and how to make and easy desk skirt.

I tend to borrow from all kinds of decor styles, and I mix things that speak to me into projects that I love.

I think defining your style can be creatively limiting, and when it comes to creating for my own home’s decor… I like to keep the possibilities limitless.

Here’s Pepper, modelling my craft desk.

This was it’s first makeover that I did way back in 2012, during my first year of blogging. You can check out that craft room desk makeover here.

I loved the look way back then, but because the pattern was quite bold I always had to cover it to take pics for the blog.

Now I want a lighter, and prettier look.

That makeover was also with contact paper and when I decided I was going to give the desk a new look, I wasn’t sure how the contact paper would come off after over nine years.

Removing old contact paper

But it came off pretty easily. In pieces, but easily.

Some pieces were bigger than others. All in all I was happy with how it peeled off.

It did leave a bit of a sticky residue, but since I was recovering the desk I wasn’t concerned about that.

Once all the old contact paper was removed, I laid the new faux white wood contact paper, which I found on Amazon, in place to measure and cut it to length.

(Don’t worry I’m not abandoning color. 🙂 You’ll see some later on in this project.)

I decided to peel a bit of the backing from the end to see if it would cover the pink.

I’m so glad I did that because this contact paper is a little on the thin side and I could definitely see the pink underneath.

Painting the craft desk top

So I painted the hot pink desk top with a white latex paint that I had in my stash.

And I painted the front and the legs as well. Then I let that dry overnight.

Measuring the contact paper

The next afternoon I laid out the new contact paper again to measure and cut it.

When I cut the pieces, I made sure there was enough to wrap around the sides and under.

Applying the contact paper to the craft desk

Starting at one end, I pulled the backing away little by little and applied the contact paper… using the front edge of the desk as a guide.

And I smoothed it in place as I went.

I did the same for the back piece, lining that piece up with the first piece.

And here’s my craft desk makeover so far.

I absolutely love it, but I’m not done yet.

I added some contact paper to the front edge of the desk and trimmed it with a craft knife.

Now onto the wall area around the craft desk.

How to hang wallpaper without wallpaper paste

I thought this fabulous faux brick wallpaper would look great with the faux wood contact paper on the craft desk.

When I ordered it from Amazon I didn’t realize it wasn’t peel and stick, and I didn’t want to do the whole wallpaper paste thing in my craft room.

I wanted to do a sort of wainscoting around my craft desk, and I wanted it to be easily removable if it ever got damaged or dirty.

Double sided carpet tape to the rescue.

I measured and placed the tape where the wallpaper seams would be, and applied the wallpaper strips as I made my way around my craft desk area.

When putting up the wallpaper, you have to make sure the wallpaper is lined up before you press it down or the tape will pull off the paper backing… rendering the tape useless.

I honestly wasn’t sure how it was going to go, but it was actually much easier than I thought it would be.

When I got to the corner I added tape to both sides of the corner.

I cut a small piece for the one side of the corner, and a larger piece for the other side. The pattern of this wallpaper made it easy to match up.

And I continued my way down that wall until I was done.

So this is the farmhouse, and now comes the funky.

I love using that pretty useless area under my desk for storage, but I don’t want to see it all the time.

How to create an easy desk skirt

This funky floral fabric is from a thrifted sheet, and to create my desk skirt all I needed was a pretty basic curtain rod, and three cup hooks.

The cup hooks are attached under the front desk area. One in the middle to support the curtain rod.

And one on each end for the curtain rod to hook into.

Supplies needed for this craft desk makeover

• Faux aged white wood contact paper
• White paint
• Faux aged white brick wallpaper
• double sided tape
• fabric
• curtain rod
• cup hooks

---

And here’s the before of my craft desk again.

And here’s the after of my farmhouse meets funky craft desk makeover. Now I have a great place to take small project photos, as well as pics for my etsy shop items.

I’m a gal who loves contrast, so I love the look of the funky floral fabric with the faux wood contact paper.

This sheet was perfect for this project because the top hem was open so I didn’t have to do any sewing. I simply cut it to length, and then cut that in half, and hung it with the hemmed sides meeting in the middle.

This is a thicker sheet so I didn’t feel the need to hem the bottom or the sides that are on the outside of the skirt.

If I didn’t have to paint the desk first I easily could have done this makeover in one afternoon. I did it over two afternoons, and it took about five hours altogether.

I love it when you can create such a big transformation in so little time, and this project was pretty thrifty too.

In Canadian funds the wallpaper was $41 and I used about half; the contact paper was $27 and I used about a third. So we’re talking about $30 total, if you count the piece of the $1 thrifted sheet that I used for the skirt. I had the roll of double sided tape, cup hooks, and curtain rod in my stash from ages ago, but if you wanted to add in that cost it would probably be about $10, for a grand total of $40.

That’s definitely thrifty enough for this thrifty girl.

And I have a lot of the contact paper and wallpaper left to replace any damage that might happen in the future.

Now it’s on to a few other areas in my craft room that also need some thrifty prettification, and some pretty organization.

It would be greatly appreciated if you would pin this project to your favorite Pinterest board, and also share it with your friends.

Thanks so much for reading and until next time,

keep on keepin’ on!

XOX