Make Well-Lit Work Spaces: DIY ‘Shelf Desks’

Part 1: Desks & Layout Planning

How To: DIY Kids’ Study/Project Desk Space & Storage Furniture

My wife found something online she liked and sent me a link. It was the sort of thing if you get from ‘Cute Storage Barn’ or ‘Kids Pottery Emporium,’ it costs 3 months of car payments. Or you can buy similar parts yourself and get it done at half-cost or less. There’s nothing wrong with spending more when you don’t have time or ability to DIY. I do that, but not this time.

In this case, I told her I could make the same sort of setup for less, mostly from a trip to the big box hardware store.

She was originally thinking silver, but I wanted to get the heavy duty standards (the vertical brackets screwed to the wall). The HD standards not only have dual track slots, but enough material to stand 1″ from the wall–a more rigid design–as opposed to the other standards which stand 5/8″ off. So I snapped this pic and texted for permission to do black, as that’s what had the long HD pieces.

The Planning Stage

Measure Twice, Install Once: Make a quick Dimensioned Layout Sketch

Make a napkin sketch to help you make a shopping list and avoid interferences with outlets or other features. You can make a fancier version like I did in CAD if you’re so inclined, but not necessary.

I took some measurements of:

• wall sizes (HxW),
• electrical outlet locations,
• and used a magnetic stud finder to make dimensions of where the studs are (on centers).

My concerns were to make something that wouldn’t overtake the room and be in the way of foot traffic flow from the room entrance.

Be Prepared.

Even If you don’t use CAD and you’re no carpenter, I still recommend:

1.) Draw out your plan, complete w/ dimensions to studs and other pertinent locations.

a.) Studs are often not 16″ on center in real life. Find your studs, write down dimensions, then you won’t have to repeat this activity later.

b.) We don’t need DaVinci, just a scratch diagram you can understand later.

2.) List the parts you’ll need to buy, and write the quantities next to each line item.

a.) It’s a significant time saver when used as a shopping list.

While I’m At It… Make 2 Work Centers!

I made another workstation for my wife. She’s recently taught herself sewing, but didn’t have a good space with proper task lighting. She also hated the look of the glass & steel desk she had for her desktop computer, so this replaced that.

She sanded, stained, and sealed all boards for these workstations after I cut them to length. She’s good at this and house painting in general. Play to your strengths!

Good Task Lighting Considerations: Will these LED Strips be bright enough?

Next Page: Shelving Install

Some Notes on the Shelving Install

• BUY Cabinet Screws.

  • I’m glad I bought cabinet screws when I was looking for screws to fasten the shelf standards to the studs at the hardware store, 3″ length. The large pan head has good clamping surface area.
  • Since I purchased black standards, I bought black screws, and they blend nicely.
  • The long screws also came in handy when I drilled a 3rd hole in the deeper part of the 19″ brackets (the largest brackets I purchased, for the desktops). I felt they provided additional holding force to the desktop (yellow circle & text on image below).
    • SAFETY: I was sure the kids would do things like leaning on the edge of the desktop, and I didn’t want it to come loose and flip up. Now, a year later, I’ve seen them stand on the desktop, sit on the edge of it, and there’s nothing you can do to stop that behavior, so accommodate it instead by proper fastening.

• Also BUY: Other Screws!

  • When you’re at the hardware store buying brackets, get some screws that will work for the 2 holes in the brackets (the light blue circles in image above).
    • I got a couple different little boxes of screws, can’t remember if they were “Number 10″ size, or what diam and thread pitch, but it was the same for both boxes. The difference was their lengths. Let’s say if the short one was 1.5″ long, the longer screw was 2.25”.
      • Just get your brackets in the cart before you head to the fastener aisle. Then hold up your brackets next to screws and find what’s going to work.
      • You don’t want screws poking through your shelf/desk tops, but you also have the leeway of drilling and screwing at an angle through the boards to compensate for too-long screws.

• Try Engineered Long Boards!

  • WHAT: These are a bunch of what (I’m assuming) would be scrap wood remainders, but they’ve been glued together in a factory to make boards. Think: Butcher block.
    • THE GOOD: They were pretty cheap, especially since they happened to be on sale. Also, they come in many widths, depths, and lengths.
    • THE BAD: Nothing, really. This is really soft wood, so if you use it for desktop, you’re going to quickly have writing marks and whatnot in it (builds character!). But you can buy harder wood versions of these boards, or even treat it with wood conditioners that supposedly harden the surface.
    • THE I DUNNO: Not sure if these boards will cup or warp less or more than regular boards. Remains to be seen.
  • WHY: I don’t own a woodshop. I don’t have a biscuit joiner or jointer or planer or belt sander or all that stuff.
    • So instead of buying a bunch of boards and trying to glue them together… I just had to get the right widths and cut them to size with a circular saw. Easy.

• Turning each shelf into a stiffened subassembly requires proper spacing from wall to maintain adjustability.

• I used the screw holes that came in all the brackets to screw down the boards (well, you’re actually screwing ‘up’ into the bottom of the boards), and this turns each shelf into a stiffer subassembly. But each shelf level is still adjustable to other slots in the standards.
  • Find a spacer block of adequate size to move each shelf board out far enough from the standards so the whole subassembly can still be tipped up, pulled out, and removed from the standard slots (for up or downward adjustment.)
    • I used “Duplo” Lego blocks for spacers, and that worked fine for my board thicknesses.
    • If you don’t do this spacing correctly, your shelf board will bind against the standards when tipped up, leaving it unadjustable.
    • This also leaves enough room to run any plugin cord between the shelf/desk and wall.
      • (Of course, if LED power wiring is “permanently” installed and clipped to the shelves, it will negate easy adjustment of some levels with lights attached.)

Next Page: Installing Slide-out Keyboard Tray

Installing Slide-out Keyboard Tray

Holly wanted her steel and glass desk out. But it did have a nice feature of a ball-bearing sliding keyboard tray. And it was a module, with attractive-enough flat head hex socket nickel-plated screws and barrel nuts (meaning: they’d look nice enough flush with the desktop), so I just unscrewed it from the desk frame and…

• Set it upside-down on the new desktop board, lined it up square and centered between the brackets underneath the desktop board
  • (of course, the tray will need to slide in and out when mounted underneath the desk, and cannot do so while straddling brackets).

• Placed painter’s tape on desktop approx. where the holes are to be, replaced the tray assembly upside-down to mark its mount holes onto the painter’s tape squares.

• Drilled–starting with small bits–straight down through the board, progressively changing out for larger bits. It’s important to use the tape to prevent tearout on the top and bottom.

• Countersink the holes: I wanted the screwheads to look flush with the desktop. I usually end up overdoing it, but close enough.
  • Free advice: even if you use a harder wood, when hand-counterboring, it’s best to under do it than overdo it, since you can’t get that material back.
  • If your bores are close, try leaving it at that. When you screw the pieces down, it’s likely heads will get flush just by hand tightening than needing to remove

Hardly notice the screw heads on top, even if they’re over-bored.

• It’s difficult to see, but I also screwed a surge protector/power strip with USB outlets to the bottom of the desktop.
• This is a quick and accessible (yet still hidden-away) feature that gets used for temporary tools like a sewing machine, vacuum, or even the kids use it to plug in their USB-rechargeable toys.
• Another good place to put a handy strip would be underneath the 1st shelf, the surface with the LED strip mounted on it.

How They Look Now (with some actual use)

What I Would Do Differently (or In the Future)

• Add peg board, painted & screwed to the section between the desktop and 1st shelf. And maybe a couple strips of cork board for the kids to pin up on.
  • This would be a great place to get all sorts of little tool organizers and utensil holders.
  • And it would cover up the standards, making a slightly more “built in” look.
• Take a jigsaw to the outside corners of the boards for a more finished look and safer edges. Then sand it before staining.
• Create an original design of a paper organizer/mini shelf system that attaches to the standards.
  • I got this done, and is detailed in a separate ‘Build Your Workstations Part 2’ post.

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Next Post: How to Make: LED Strips Task Lighting & Custom Desk Organizer

This post got long so I separated into 2 Parts:

1. Design & Build the Desks (this post), and
2. Design & Build LED Lights, and a Custom Desk Organizer Design & Fab