Ballard Designs Desk - Knockoff

Ever since I got the first issue of Ballard Designs, I fell in love, boy I wish I could buy the whole magazine sometimes, but then I know I would be running out of spaces to redecorate.

But I knew I had to have this desk the first time I saw it in the catalog.

BUT, a whopping $3000.00!!!  was WAY out of my price range.  I knew I had to have it though, so the wheels in my head started turning and turning....

I measured the space of the wall that I was going to put it up against and the tall bookshelves/filecabinets that I already had.  I surfed online for countless hours (ahem, days) to find the prefect bookcases for the desk part (and they were still too light)

BUT

it all worked out in the end.

Here is my version of the desk, and to my surprise, it doesn't bother me that the wood colors aren't an exact match.  To be honest, I can hardly tell, I think once I stacked up the photo boxes, it hid a lot of the obvious.