Anyone who, like us, dreams of a desk in the greenery might like our green desk. Our basic idea: to build a desk that offers a writing surface and at the same time is a large planter. A piece of furniture that is reclaimed by nature. Here is our guide!
But before we can get started, we need:
- an old piece of furniture – in our case a secretary desk
- sandpaper or a sander
- white acrylic paint
- paint roller or brush
- jigsaw
- plant pots with an overhanging rim
- old books
- a cutting knife
- possibly a miter saw for the books
- multi-tape
- some old foil (e.g., from a bag of potting soil)
- lots of plants and seeds
Gelsenkirchen baroque. But not for long…
Then we can get started. Our neighbors kindly gave us the Gelsenkirchen Baroque-style cabinet, as well as most of the books – we also fished some others out of the paper trash.
In the next step, we disassembled and sanded the cabinet as needed.
Sanded and ready to saw.
On the shelves, we then marked the spots where we later wanted to insert the plant containers. We used the pots as templates and reduced the resulting circle to fit the overhanging rims of the pots.
The holes are sawn, and the containers fit.
Then we sawed the holes according to our markings. We then test-fitted the pots into the openings. Does everything fit? Then we can continue!
The next step requires patience: We painted the cabinet three times in total until we achieved the desired result. But it was worth it.
The miter saw comes into play – incredibly dusty and only recommended in the fresh air.
While the white paint was drying a bit more, we started with the “camouflage” of the plant containers. From the large collection of books that our friends and acquaintances wanted to get rid of, we chose books of the same height and sawed off the spines with the miter saw – these later serve as camouflage for the plant containers.
A book cover and some multi-tape complete the facade.
We then turned the book spines into camouflage facades for our plant containers using a copy with a nice cover and lots of multi-tape.
And this is what the camouflage looks like from the front.
We had to do some experimenting under the plant containers. Beneath our facades, we had to lay books crosswise on the shelves so that the sawn books would fill the available height exactly.
Fits and covers the entire plant container.
Now the first plants could already move in. In addition to the plants in the pots, we also placed some air plants here and there to add small accents.
We didn’t want to stop there and also converted a drawer. For this, we took one of the small desk drawers and lined it with leftover pieces of a plant bag. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get the construction sealed, so we later switched: we cut up a bag of potting soil and used the foil to seal the drawer. Add some soil and lots of cress seeds.
A planted drawer.
A week later, the drawer was already completely covered with cress. However, after the cress, we temporarily switched to planting with succulents.
The cress grows out of the drawer.
We also wanted to make the side of the secretary desk green. Very simple – two bowls from the bathroom range at IKEA with matching hangers (which we had to cut in half) and the plant containers were ready, which can even be removed thanks to the hanger.
Plants should also find a new home on the side of the secretary desk.
On the side, a baby’s tears plant (Soleirolia soleirolii) found its new home. Sooner or later, the shoots of the upper plant will reach those of the lower one and give the impression of a green waterfall.
The baby’s tears plant is already growing and still feeling great weeks later.
On the lower shelf, we wanted to hide another pot, but we couldn’t hide it in a hole like the others. So, we spent hours hollowing out three books to make the pot disappear inside.
Sweaty work: cutting hundreds of pages with a cutter.
But the result – including the book titles – is impressive. The Senecio ‘Himalaya’ (Senecio barbertonicus) feels comfortable and keeps growing and growing…
Roots are being established in the book ‘Roots’.
And that’s it! The green desk is finished. Here are some impressions of the fully planted secretary desk!
