Star Trek Command Desk

A couple of months ago a friend of mine asked me to make her sons something to play with after she saw my posts of repurposed furniture.  I've been on the hunt for the perfect items to stay within her $40.00 budget.  After our move we ended up with an old student's desk that wasn't being used.  It was perfect for the Star Trek themed desk that I wanted to make for them.  Not only did the desk allow for two chairs to sit comfortably because there were no drawers, but I had gotten it free from my old office when they were upgrading their desks.  The brainstorming for this project has taken a few months with all the other projects I have jumbled in my head and the big move.  I wanted to get it done before summer was over so that they had time to play with it. I believe they are five and six year old boys, but they both love Star Trek because their mother is a Trekky and has it on the TV all of the time.  Growing up watching with my Dad, I had a good idea what to do.  I used the original Command Center set as my inspiration since it actually had buttons to push and not the futuristic computer screens.  My family and I had also gone to a Star Trek exhibit a few years back and seen a replica of the original set, which helped me picture what the desk would look like.

If you know me well, you'll know that I'm a pack rat.  Quite a few of the things I used for this desk were a one-off because I had them around the house.  This is an original masterpiece!  The items that I did end up buying I got mostly from the Dollar Store.  I got everything for $20.00!  The best part about making this desk is how excited the boys were to play with it.  To me it was fun putting it together, but I was a little apprehensive that they would like to play with it since it's very homemade.  But as they say, "Home(made) is where the heart is."

I made the Communicators out of foam from the Dollar store and a safety pin.  I put a little bit of hot glue on the back of the Communicator to attach the safety pin.  I had also just gotten a whole roll of Velcro that retails for $19.99 for $2.00 at a garage sale so I put a little piece on the back also so that it could be attached and detached from the desk.

Christopher used to be really into painting models so I borrowed a bunch of his paints and brushes.  I actually had to buy some paints also since he didn't have very many bright colors.  Using one of this fine tip rubber brushes (I'd consider it a pencil brush if it were a makeup brush) I wrote the boy's names on each side of the desk.  The "phasers" are actually just Dollar Store nurf guns that I took the foam darts out of.  I added Velcro to these also so that they could be detached.  I gave the foam darts to their Mom, but I don't think they even realized that there is anything to shoot out...except for laser beam, of course. 

This is the whole desk.  You can fit two dining chairs in comfortably.  

This was the fun part where I had to get creative with what I was going to put down as buttons.  Again, the Star Trek insignia was made of foam.  The large red and blue buttons were actually dresser pulls that I got off of a dresser I got free for a different project.  I didn't need the knobs anymore so I painted them and glued them on.  I considered drilling them in so that they could spin, but that was getting a little complicated.  The squares are just small pieces of wood that I got from Joann's.  The yellow buttons are pencil top erasers from the Dollar Store.  They were originally basketball, baseball, and soccer ball designed erasers that I painted yellow.  I chose these because they had a different texture than the red and blue wooden knobs.  The erasers are a little squishy, but not too squishy.  The colorful circles are actually those grippy tubes that you put on a pencil to help you hold the pencil better.  I just cut them into little rings and glued them on individually.  These had the most squish factor to feel like you are actually pushing a button.   These were my best idea for the whole project because I was able to take up a lot of desk real estate with $2.00 worth of pencil grippers.  I also added on individual calculators for extra button pushing.  At the very top on the lefthand portion of the frame is a bicycle bell.  This has nothing to do with Star Trek, but I wanted to add something with sound.  Minus the green squares and paint from Joann's the rest was from the Dollar Store!  My Dad actually had the idea to put in an old cell phone too.  He said "flip phone".  Well I didn't have a traditional flip phone anymore, but I did have an old slider that would work just as well.