apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

It’s funny; because this project might never have gotten started if we (yes, the entire Unplggd staff- we go everywhere together) had not been at IKEA looking for a desk. You know how it goes; “ooh, cool table top… write down the product number… ooh, cool legs (in this case: Vika Inge- see below pic)… write that one down…” Then you go over to the warehouse and they are out of something. This time it was the table top.

A quick calculation revealed that the $150 table top could easily be replaced with some exotic hardwood and a bit of elbow grease. Our shop here in the west wing of the Unplggd dorm is outfitted with all kinds of little tools that enable this process but again:

Flat surface + IKEA legs = desk.

Then the real idea hit: What if we turned this table into a sleek, tech-infused masterpiece? We could incorporate all kinds of doodads and hide wires and have a totally Zen look and have a lot more friends. No need for it to look techy; it can be totally stealth. Perfect.

Rockler is a cool woodworker’s store here on the west coast that carries a lot of really neat wood and we settled on “Jarrah”... which we had never heard of before. A quick Wiki search determined it is as common as Oak in Australia and is in the Eucalyptus family… which might help. (This is also a great opportunity to reuse something you might have kicking around at home as a desktop.) $100 later we were out the door and into the Unplggd short bus on the way back home.

We laid it out on the floor to match up the grain, flipping pieces around until we had what we wanted. Then we took it into the shop to recut all the edges so they would glue together straightlike.

After that we took out a biscuit cutter to put little disk shaped holes in the edges of the wood so we could fit biscuits (disks) in for gluing. These biscuits provide more strength when gluing two pieces of wood side to side- see photos above and below.

Then we glued everything up with all the clamps we could find and employed our special “staring” technique developed in our speaker building project to help the glue dry. We used Gorilla glue for this job (also at Rockler) and it recommends waiting 24 hours to start working on it again.

Stay tuned for next time when we finish the table itself and attach the legs… remember; be not afraid:

Flat surface + IKEA legs = desk.

Related Links:

• DIY: How to Make VERY Simple Speakers, Part 1
• DIY Project: Turning a Home Office on Its Side
• Inspiration: Buonanotte Table Lamp
• Flickr Finds: Jen's Hidden Office