I found this lovely desk advertised on my local for sale site for $20.00.  I was really excited about restoring it.  But when I went to pick it up I was a bit disappointed because it had been given a very deep shabby chic look.

There was no way I could restore it without spending many hours sanding. So I decided to repurpose it. My great-niece comes to visit often and loves playing in the sand, but I did notice that she did not like to sit in the sandpit. She would get all upset when the sand would get inside her diaper. That is when I came up with the idea to make a sandpit that she could use standing up. 

How to make a sandpit table

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Find a suitable table

These little study desks work perfectly for this project.  The drawers can be used to store all the sandpit toys to keep your area tidy after playtime.  

Find a suitable container (sandpit)

A suitable container for this project must have a lip to stop it from falling through the hole.  It should also have a lid so it does not become a deluxe litter box for the neighbourhood cats. I chose this light blue 35L container so it would look nice against the dark stain I had in mind for the sandpit desk. To start, measure the container just under the lip, this is the correct size for your hole. 

To make an opening for the jigsaw blade, use a drill and a large drill bit and make holes in all for corners. Cut out the hole using a jigsaw. 

Cutting the hole

Do a test fit to make sure the container fits snugly into the hole. The lip will rest on the surface of the desk. I did have some bits of excess plastic sticking out of my container which I had to file off. You will also notice that the sandpit container has taken up the space required for the top drawer, there is no way around this unless you use a smaller container.

Shorten the desk

The desk was a bit high for a toddler so I wanted to make the height more suitable for her, which was 45 cm high.   I used my square ruler to mark out the correct height and made a cutting line.  I used a circular saw to cut the desk shorter, a jigsaw will also work. 

Add support beams

Since the bottom had been cut away so was the support beam across the bottom of the desk that kept the desk sturdy.  I removed the support beam from the section I cut off and reattached to the desk.  To do this I used a pocket hole jig to add pocket holes to the wood. I thought this would be stronger than just glueing the piece back in place.

I use pocket hole screws to reattached the wood support.

Once the container was put back into the hole, I was not happy that you could see the bottom of the container under the desk.  This was a cosmetic issue, but I wanted to fix it. You can use a scrap piece of wood and cut it to the size of the gap.  Again I used the pocket hole jig and screwed the wood into place.

Because the container took up space where the first draw would have been, I could not put the drawer back in.  So to hide the gap I cut the front of the drawer off and glued it over the gap. The bottom drawer was put back into place to serve as storage.

Staining the wood

Because this sandpit desk was going to be staying at my house, I wanted it to blend in with my outdoor decor.  I chose to stain it with dark mahogany stain for this reason.  This desk had some rough edges from the distressing it was given which I sanded smooth to prevent any splinters. Another safety precaution was to remove all the shape edges using a wood router and round over bit. Because this sandpit desk was going to be outside under my pergola I gave it 2 coats of outdoor varnish to protect the surface.

Adding the sand

I bought 2  x 25 kg bags of sandpit beach sand from my local hardware store.  It only required 1 and a bit out of the second bag.

She really loved her new sandpit desk and plays with it every time she comes to visit.  Another feature I added to this table was to purchase a second container for water play in the summer.  I just remover the container with sand and replace it with a container full of water.

The offcut from the desk was used to make the matching chair for the sandpit. 

More great project

Another similar desk that I repurposed into a lego table for my niece.

or this cool craft table with its cute zebra bench to store all your toddler’s craft supplies in one place.  The top lifts up and all supplies are store inside. 

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