As long as we're sharing pictures of our homemade desks, here's mine: http://i.imgur.com/vFAThh.jpg Oak, oak, oak, and more oak. I love oak. And here's a full build album, including pictures of my wife's desk on the other side of the room: http://imgur.com/a/HTxXk Everything was done by hand except for the cabinet boxes above the corner desk and the cabinet doors, which I had made by a local cabinetry shop, since I d…
That's absolutely amazing.
No, not the desk, which looks good, but the fact that a small child apparently inhabits that house, but it's spotless.
As long as we're sharing pictures of our homemade desks, here's mine: http://i.imgur.com/vFAThh.jpg Oak, oak, oak, and more oak. I love oak. And here's a full build album, including pictures of my wife's desk on the other side of the room: http://imgur.com/a/HTxXk Everything was done by hand except for the cabinet boxes above the corner desk and the cabinet doors, which I had made by a local cabinetry shop, since I d…
That's absolutely amazing. No, not the desk, which looks good, but the fact that a small child apparently inhabits that house, but it's spotless .
Haha, it probably hasn't been that clean since the picture was taken three years ago.
For me, a used IKEA Jerker for $50 of CL with task light has been perfect. People worship[0] this desk. Now I see why. Lots more photos[1] available, including standing desks, treadmill desks, etc. It's got adjustable height from slouching to standing (painful to adjust, but possible in 1.5" increments). The shelf I have up top has room for 1 full sized PC, 1 printer, and 2 NAS servers. I use another shelf on the bot…
IKEA Galant for me. Super configurable, high quality finish, and relatively inexpensive.
It's always great to see people jump into doing something new with their hands. That said, I predict cracks and early failure for the top. The author created something called "breadboard ends" (the left and the right side of the top writing surface have boards that run 90 degrees to the main boards of the top). Breadboard ends are a great technique - they keep the natural tendency of the left-to-right boards to cup (…
sometimes trades do have semi-secret techniques evolved from dealing with the same damned issues over and over and over again. This is the thing that keeps me from building my own tables, chairs, whatever. I know with many categories of things, even if building my own is 20% cheaper, I will still require 3 revisions to get it right.
We are so used to tailoring one-off solutions in software that we can't imagine just taking some boring old woodworking plan and using it as is to quickly gain experience and produce a solid first result without R&D headaches. But in woodworking you really can just take someone else's design and build it. Most likely the designer already made all the mistakes before, so the thing will just work. You'll learn the techniques, and by asking why often enough you will trace back to the problems solved by various design elements. You will have a better idea of what to innovate yourself next time. Besides all the learning, you'll have a functional thing that you can keep, sell, or give away. (Says the guy who had to design his own banjo, still isn't done, and could have built two or three in the same time by copying instead of analyzing every feature from the ground up.)
Building your own furniture is the best! The only thing that you can't do (easily) are chairs and couches. Also, is that polyurethane varnish for the second coat?
Nope, it's all Waterlox. 4 coats of it. I want to use poly for the next project just for experience. Waterlox does have a nice finish, but it takes forever to dry and takes several coats.
It's always great to see people jump into doing something new with their hands. That said, I predict cracks and early failure for the top. The author created something called "breadboard ends" (the left and the right side of the top writing surface have boards that run 90 degrees to the main boards of the top). Breadboard ends are a great technique - they keep the natural tendency of the left-to-right boards to cup (…
Yeah, I didn't think about that. There was so much research to do and eventually I just built the thing knowing I probably made mistakes. Thanks for the feedback; I didn't know it was called breadboard ends, and now I can research how to properly do that. If this ends up cracking in a few years, I'll just build another one!
Congrats on diving in and doing it. You made it, it's done, it works. That has to be satisfying to use every day. If it cracks, it cracks. You can always repair it, distress it further, or just live with it. It will still hold the computer up!
I recently built my own desk too. I live in an old victorian with a curved window. The only way to fit a desk there was to create my own.
I went with a walnut top, and then got some legs from Ikea so I could adjust the height to where I'd like. I think next time, I'd make my own legs for even great stability.
Besides doing the finish, the process is super easy. Just lots of sanding. I posted some photos to Instagram, which then synced to Flickr here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisstreeter/sets/721576366662... One note is that these photos are pre-27" monitor, so the desk looks a bit more complete now.
I made a two person desk with my co-founder by buying a 8ft long counter top at ikea and 5 metal legs. Looks pretty slick and has held up for a year now.