![]() ![]() Instead, I poked my head under our dining room table since it had the same basic legs and rail design that we decided we wanted for our simple DIY desk. Picture us with some serious jazz hands thanks to this fortuitous development.Īs for the rest of my supplies, I didn’t turn to woodworking plans like a normal person might (I wasn’t planning on doing any fancy drawers on my first attempt at furniture building, so perhaps I was feeling a bit adventurous). Plus not only was it free, but it required absolutely zero hauling. And lucky for us, the door was nearly a perfect fit for our floor plan without much altering (it was just under 7ft long, and about 18 inches wide). Sherry had seen a few other folks around the blogosphere repurposing doors to create tabletops and desktops so she convinced me that we should join the ranks. It was always in the way so it had to go (and you know we have a thing for open storage anyway), but now it was poised for a comeback. Check it out in the photo below on the left. So we put on our thinking caps and our figuring-things-out pants and – in a moment of inspiration – Sherry remembered that we still had the hollow-core door that once lived on our bathroom linen closet residing right in our garage. Plus – how hard could it be? Just gotta screw some legs onto a big slab of wood, right? But when it comes to getting “big slabs” of anything home, we always have to think a bit harder since our only vehicle is a Nissan Altima (which isn’t really something that a 7 foot piece of wood just slides into). I’d been eager to try out the Kreg Jig on something bigger, so this seemed like just the project. It was beginning to look like we were all out of desk luck…īut then, infused by some of the confidence leftover from my self-building experience, I decided that I should build a custom desk for us. And the Crate & Barrel option wasn’t only more expensive ($379), but it didn’t accommodate two desk areas (so we would probably have to build something similar that would) and it also meant there would be an abundance of bookcases in the room (remember, we’re already planning to place one next to the uncentered window to balance out that wall and add tons of functional storage space. Plus the $249 price tag was a bit steep for two cheap-os like ourselves. The IKEA option was close, but at 5’10” long and only 15″ deep, it didn’t fill the space as much as it could have (and we’ll take all the desktop that we can get!). Sadly after checking out both solutions in person, we weren’t won over by either one. ![]() So after lots of hunting (and even some thrift store trolling) we came up with two decent options – the IKEA Besta Burs and something like the Crate & Barrel Sloane Leaning Bookcase Desk (with two work areas instead of one). We had about 7ft between the window and the door (when it was fully open) to work with, but only 21″ of depth before we’d start bumping into the folded-out sofa bed. With that decided, our next challenge was finding a desk to fit that wall. Plus we loved having a blank wall in front of us to hang art, pinboards or whatever other productivity-inducing wall decor we decide that we need when it comes time to tackle the art-factor in the room. So what did we decide? Zone #2 for the win! It made the most sense since it was the longest space. But it also meant that we’d have our backs to one another, which isn’t always helpful when we’re working on something together (seeing each other’s screens would be more convenient). Zone #3 only offered up space for one desk, although putting one of us there (and the other person in zone #1 or #2) would take pressure off of finding one long two-person desk.Zone #2 felt like a better choice since it was the longest uninterrupted wall, but it would require a very custom sized desk because of how long that wall is and how far the sofabed would need to fold out when it’s in use.Plus, we had big plans for a bookcase on that wall (to balance out the height of the uncentered window) so it was on to the next two options. But with the couch so close, it meant the other person might be a bit cramped. Zone #1 sounded great because it meant one of us would get to peer out the window and enjoy a nice view of the backyard.Allow me to introduce my simple (not-to-scale) floor plan to demonstrate the desk placement options that we weighed: ![]() So we decided that a little pre-planning would help us answer that very question. One of the major questions facing us when figuring out how to add some office-y function to our guest bedroom was: where does the desk go? Correction: since there are two of us, were do the desks go? Bear in mind that this isn’t the easiest question when you’re working with such a modestly sized room (it’s just 10′ x 10.5′) that also needs to accommodate our new sofa (which folds out into a full bed for our occasional house guests). ![]()
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