Saturday morning has again arrived, and with it the vaunted Saturday Morning Home Repair Blog! Each week we gather to show off the work we've done, educate the best we can on proper techniques, and offer (hopfully) helpful solutions to any post in the comments section. There is often great consumption of coffee through bleary eyes, so try to forgive any mis-spellings.
In October 2009, eight months after purchasing our 2-family house as a foreclosure, my wife gave me the welcome news of pregnancy. We had held off until we had a house, and now the time had come to spawn. With two bedrooms, we were ready, willing, and obviously able. It then sunk in that the second bedroom was my home office, with my computer on a 6' x 3' solid steel desk from Digital Equipment Corporation; far too large to fit anywhere else in the house.
Time to get creative.
Back in January I wrote of installing cabinets I had gotten from a failing company. There were additonal materials such as counters and drawer units I scored at the same time. Add to that some old free-standing DVD towers, a small crappy TV stand, a few boards and screws....and a plan formed. I've always preferred corner computer desks, so if I had to build one, making it a corner unit appealed. Not to mention a complete lack of space to do anything else.
The height of the first tier of the desk was determined by the drawer unit. About 8" shorter would have been preferable, but this is a case of using what's on hand to make something useful. To compensate for the too-tall height, a sliding keyboard shelf and seperate mouse shelf were in order; these parts were previously part of the useless TV stand. Cut down the DVD towers (4 in total; 3 are in the lower portion) to match the height of the drawer unit, and voila! the beginnings of a desk.
Now for the second layer. As a former computer tech and CS major at UMass, I have a gazillion (that's a specific number - I counted) discs, books, cables, parts...you name it. Add to that the normal home-office stuff like envelopes, stapler, pens, and storage becomes far more than just a good idea. I should also mention my computer is a full tower ATX case standing at 21" tall. Add speakers, printer, modem, router...all had to fit in this one piece of cobbled furniture.
Off to Lowe's we go for angle brackets, screws, drawer slide rails for the keyboard shelf, and melamine boards. Upon return, crack beer, curse about not having a third bedroom, and fire up the circular saw. Measure, cut, screw. Rinse and repeat until a second tier comes to life, and the keyboard can be slid easily in and out of the way.
On the left are two more shelves from the TV stand, identical but opposite to the one used for the mouse shelf. The final DVD tower is on the right side, obscured by the white board, and the top shelf is the other counter piece from the aforementioned failed company. Although primarily free standing, I thought it wise to attach to studs in the wall in 3 places. The countertops are each 1 1/2" thick, quite heavy, and kids tend to climb things; call it preventing an ER visit.
And, load it. All drawers are completely stuffed, every shelf packed. There is now also an APC uninteruptable power supply, wastebasket, and case of paper underneath. As usually happens, my desk is the catch-all for stuff to be filed, fixed and sorted, so that picture is easily the cleanest it has been in quite some time. Come spring I'll sort and rearrange better, not to mention clean it as best I can - it's been a few years now. Someday I'll also remember to get some counter edging for the raw edges of the counter top (and cover a boo-boo), but it's not too high on the priority list.
So there you have it. Necessity, spare parts, a bit of creativity (and a few beers), another problem solved. Not 100% pretty or comfortable, but 110% useful. And at the end of the day, that's what I was shooting for.
OK, the floor is open to all. What are you folks up to?