Any home made desks?

B

bexamous

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Dec 12, 2005
Messages
1,670
I bought two solid core doors from Home Depot for $55 each I think, this was like 4 years ago. I did one layer of clear coat on the top and got impatient and never did the rest.

I bought a length of 1/2" copper pipe and cut it up for the legs. Then there is some galvanized plumping piece that makes it easy to mount the legs to the door-- can't see it in pictures.

Also there are two brackets, one for each door, to attach them to the wall to stop any swaying or something... the only force on the copper pipe is straight down.

Anyways overall I spent something like $130 for 2 doors to make an L shape-- single door woulda been half that.

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Here is mine from 2007. I am in the process of rebuilding it.

My cats live in the office. they trashed the leather chair, the desk top, the carpet, the bookcase; although I should be able to save it, plus a lot of papers and such.
I am trying to make it more cat proof now.








The things that are going to change:

The L Shape is no more. The desk will now be a single rectangular shape with a upper hutch that goes all the way to the ceiling. The top is probably going to be granite. I am redesigning the drawers and the area for holding the computer will be down off the top of the desk. I will probably upgrade to a 30 inch flat panel and have it mounted to the back of the hutch. I am also probably going to enclose the bookcase with glass flip-open slide out doors for each bookshelf. The pictures do not show the bookcase, however it fills one entire wall.
 
Home depot has a nice 2' wide 1" thick 4' long wood broad that would work well for a table top, you might be hard pressed at the selection there, but Lowes has a good selection by far. Also, wood is expensive, the project maybe around $300, but not very sure yet. I'm very very limited by space as to why I started this.

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I'm planning on building a desk out of a solid core door very soon. My dad built a drafting table out of one and it turned out nice. I love the desk I have now but it's just too small. It barely fits my 26" and 19" monitors. I can't wait for the door desk though. 80" x 32" is a nice large desk. I think I'm going to mount the back and one side to the wall and then just use a stair post for the last corner. Should look nice and clean.
 
Here is the storage desk I built November 2007 in a couple hours for storage space and modding space. Some 2x2 railing from Home Depot and some marble tiles that were on sale for $0.99 a tile. It was built modular, Good thing as it was built as my modding area but once we got the kittens it was just too much effort to spent hours cleaning the apartment after a good modding session. One end section is currently being used near the kitchen as extra counter space, with storage on bottom for modding supplies.

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these are the only pictures i have of mine right now... wow this setup was shitty. the setup has changed a lot, but the desk is the same.

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Now that that is out of the way.....


I only have a partial picture of the desk we built at home but sufficient to say Onyx was not the cheapest material to use so we used onyx insets for the area we write on and tile for the rest of the top since there are always drinks and electronics on it.

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Here's the desk I built this weekend. It needs to be stained and clear coated but I'll get to that after tax season is over (I'm a CPA) when I have time. IT's a 80" by 32" solid core birch door with a 29" table leg mounted to the wall with 2x4's and L brackets underneath. Great solid desk with a good amount of room.

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My dad and my brother built this when this was brother's room almost 10 years ago.
 
Built two of these last year, one on my side of the room, one for the GF. They are mirrored so the drawer is on the right side of hers.
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That looks great! I've always wanted to build a desk like that. I'd want mine to have cabinets on both sides though with a slab of butcher's block on top.
 
OofC_S7v7N said:
Looks like you got a cabinet and but a top on and some legs?
Click to expand...

They are cabinets, yes. I wanted to have a drawer on each desk, and the cabinet fit that perfectly. I got two of them on clearance from Lowes for like $50 each. The top is a pine hobby board with a hemlock trim along the front. I sanded the heck out of it all, then covered it in polyurethane so it is waterproof and dent proof (pine is very soft). The keyboard tray is actually made from the first attempt at making a top. It didn't turn out like I wanted so I made them over and cut the trial in half and flipped it over to make a keyboard tray, complete with leading edge lip to keep the keyboard from sliding off the front. The legs are 2x2 maple sanded down, rounded corners, and screwed together. I put a cap in the screw hole then sanded it flat so you can barely see where the holes were. Both desks are nearly identical except the cabinet is on the other side of the other desk, and it's door opens the other way.
 
This is a custom made desk made about 15-16 years ago.
A friend of mine had it made and used it for a linear editing system then gave it to me in 1997.
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wow you guys this is pretty cool.

I've got a good solid 5 years of highschool woodshop under my belt (which I've done nothing with), and I'm in the market for a new desk...

good looking stuff. +1 pt for OP for using copper piping. A friend of mine built an overhead pot/pan rack using 3/8" or 1/2" copper piping. I'll grab a picture when I can.
 
i remember taking a door and throwing it on a crappy desk. Gave me tons of space and looked a whole lot better.
 
MrWizard6600 said:
wow you guys this is pretty cool.

I've got a good solid 5 years of highschool woodshop under my belt (which I've done nothing with), and I'm in the market for a new desk...

good looking stuff. +1 pt for OP for using copper piping. A friend of mine built an overhead pot/pan rack using 3/8" or 1/2" copper piping. I'll grab a picture when I can.
Click to expand...
5 years?
 
Nice desks everyone. I might consider trying to build one next time instead of buying one.

MrWizard6600 said:
grades 8 - 12. You wierd americans and your middle school system.
Click to expand...

Yeah, schools here in the states don't really know what to do with grades 6-8. Being an army brat I attended a middle school for grades 6 and half of 7th and then moved to a place where grades 7-8 where considered Junior High and grade 6 was still part of elementary.
 
This is something I threw together in about five minutes. I wanted somewhere to keep my old PCs, and somewhere with space to work on them outside of my bedroom. So I "made" this in the garage. It's a decent size, I will probably end up doing something more final eventually.

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spac3d, what did you use for a top on your desk? looks like it has a border.

and using a solid core door is a good idea, maybe a little thick but certainly sturdy!
 
im surprised there isnt more posts here or that this thread wasnt started long ago?
i have been over at the ikea thread and i love the looks of the jerker but i want/need
a much bigger desk and i want some drawers and a hutch. im no craftsman but im
definetly going to try and build my own. not sure just what tools i will need to do it with?
a table saw or skill saw, and a brad nailer will be most useful i suspect?

i really like the look of Dallas' desk, the little shelf down below looks very useful. one thing
i seen from visiting the ikea thread is a little gadget most all of you guys will want to get also

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50035115


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Cursed said:
This is something I threw together in about five minutes. I wanted somewhere to keep my old PCs, and somewhere with space to work on them outside of my bedroom. So I "made" this in the garage. It's a decent size, I will probably end up doing something more final eventually.

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Click to expand...

So classic :)
 
I made this out of some prefabbed stuff at Lowes, stain, Ikea legs and heavy duty brackets.
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Pkirk618 said:
i remember taking a door and throwing it on a crappy desk. Gave me tons of space and looked a whole lot better.
Click to expand...
+1

My first studio condo was so small that I converted the washer/dryer area into my PC station. I bought an unfinished wood door from Home Depot and propped it between a pair of file cabinets. I trimmed the door so it fit perfectly from wall to wall and all the cables were run through the door knob hole. I believe I paid about $40 for the door. Great, easy desk.
 
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Built this weekend. 3/4" MDF, a bit over 6' wide and 3' deep. 33" on the far end, 30.5" by the LCDs, and 28" on the keyboard area. Keyboard area is 4' wide and has two 2' deep panels overlapping with space between. Works good for storing secondary keyboards and mice, etc. Put a couple holes through the back and between the box and by my feet for running cables. Cost was $88.36 with screws. Took about 4 hours to assemble. It won't be painted. It was built for function, I don't care what it looks like or if it gets scratched and scarred. I plan on putting a door on the far end, but I'm not sure how I want to do that yet.

Now I need to buy longer cables for the LCDs. The ones I have are a bit short, I need another foot or two to get everything where I want it.

More pics

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Widefault that is a pretty sick diy job there, I really like it. I also like the fact that you still have that hackintosh over there, that was a very sick worklog, I love the way it came out. Nice work.
 
Throc: War Damn Eagle!

Good to see some natives around [H] from time to time.

Back on point, I've modified my IKEA Jerker and built extra stuff onto it, but am about to start a full custom desk build tomorrow combining some ideas from you fine folks and some of the folks on overclockers.net. Anyway, it'll probably end up looking like a more custom IKEA product, but we'll see. I"ll be sure to post pics in case youse guys care to see it.
 
Northerner said:
i really like the look of Dallas' desk, the little shelf down below looks very useful. one thing
i seen from visiting the ikea thread is a little gadget most all of you guys will want to get also

http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/50035115

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Click to expand...

This item is $10 in the US online store and has a shipping cost of $17.99 and $1 tax, which brings the total to $28.99.
I still may order it, but I'll just tell myself that the item was $19.99 and shipping was $9. :)

Ordering 3 is the best value, $51.05 total.
 
I wanted those ikea racks really bad too, but the shipping killed it. i used some velcro wire management ties from staples and screwed them to the wall and made things 10x better.

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ric0chet06 said:
I wanted those ikea racks really bad too, but the shipping killed it. i used some velcro wire management ties from staples and screwed them to the wall and made things 10x better.
Click to expand...

i think i messed up and i apologize, i got to looking when i seen you stated the shipping killed it for you. so i looked and i messed up and posted the Euro link so if you checked there i am sure the shipping would have been high!

check this link http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50035115
i checked into buying two for twenty and shipping was twenty for me for both.

good luck!
 
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