Desk Edition

I finished my desk on Sunday.

I started thinking about a place in the house that would make a decent office for me about, oh, 3 years and 4 months ago. What? That's when we moved in? Huh. Who knew.

So I've wanted a space for me ever since we've moved in. I've moved from desk to kitchen table to dining room table to coffee table. And that was, shall we say, completely and totally unorganized? But when I decided to go back to work, I decided I wanted a spot to call my own. And since I'd bought the table saw recently, I figured I should give it a bit more work to see what I could do.

I searched the interwebs for desk designs that I liked, and found one that looked nice, took up minimal floor space, and looked buildable, even for a novice like me.

This is how it ended up. It's a bit junked up right now, but I'm still futzing around, trying to figure out how it best works. But honestly? I'm quite thrilled with how it turned out. I used a few pieces of red oak veneer plywood, some stain, a 1X6 for the back, and some stainable veneer tape for the rough looking edges. I won't talk about how many hours it took, or the fact that I had to rebuild part of it because I was unhappy with how it turned out.

What matters is that it actually looks decent on the wall, is solid, stable, has even corners, and so far has been quite functional for what I need. As a bonus, I discovered last night that a tumbler will fit very nicely in one of the compartments. Not as much of a spillage chance there - SCORE!

And while I was in the middle of working on the desk, I had a brain storm. I had a few pieces of extra wood that matched my desk - and they were just about the right size to make a holder for the printer.

There's no need to mention the arguments that printer and I have had over the last few years. It's freaking heavy, doesn't operate well just sitting on carpet, and didn't really have a permanent home, so it cluttered up SOME part of the house. Not to mention the fact that the paper always wandered several rooms away from the printer, so when I needed to print something, it was an ordeal. Often, the laptop would be in one room, the printer in another, and the paper had gone AWOL. LESS THAN IDEAL.

Because this desk hangs on the wall, I didn't intend to put a lot of weight on it. So instead, I bought some casters, put them on a bottom board, and built a little compartment to hold my paper. So now I have a printer holder that matches my desk, along with storage space for the paper. And everything should be in the same place every time I need it. This makes me happy.

I like my desk. I love that I was actually able to think this thing through from raw wood to finished product. J had to help me think through what kind of support I'd need to hang the sucker on the wall - 6 large sized bolts going through 3 studs in the wall. Hanging this sucker left my arms tired and sore for two straight days - but it was totally worth it. I'm quite happy with it.