Building my own PC desk

[mo]

Hi I wanna build my own PC desk almost exatcly like the one posted here by Mat

100 (argos desk that he shortened)

do I need?

4 pieces of wood - 1 large for the desk itself - 2 along the side and then perhaps one at the back whoc goes halfway down or is in the middle... what would be the best way to connect them - putting in dowels so you cannot see everything might be too hard for me!

I will also need a pull out keyboard (an alternative to this is to make the keyboard at the height I want and to make a stand for the monitor...

Any ideas on good places to get decent quality wood (Well half decent I want it quite solid) - perhpas homebase- and how much might it all cost?

Cheers.

[Blair]

I built my own desk as follows. For support I use two 2 drawer filing cabinets. The top simply rests on the two cabinets at either end of the top with space between for my legs. The top is 5ft long- I find it essential to have a large work surface area and is 1¼ thick The wood is a composite of strips of wood which is glued together in the factory and therefore will not warp. My desk is 32 ins wide and the composite is supplied in 16 ins widths so I glue the two together.. Finally varnish the wood and it looks great. Everyone who sees it want to know where I bought it from Wood supplied by timber merchants- look for them in yellow pages Blair

[john]

Mine is an old single kitchen base unit without its legs - a length of worktop and a couple of tubular legs at the other end.

[RedOnRed]

All of those desks look too small and very cramped to me.

My last desk was just big enough to have a keyboard, monitor and mouse on it and was a nightmare.

If you've got the space i'd make sure you make one with enough room to do writing, without having to shift every thing to one side each time. It's well worth it.

[Simon]

If I was going to put it in the same position as Mat has, I would not bother with the side pieces or a back. I would just put some 1" X 1.5" on the wall and rest the desk top on that. Also curve off the left hand corner so that I do not walk into it when half asleep. I used two sheets of mdf for mine, cut into a large curve to take two PCs with lots of space. It does have lots of supports and mdf would probably not be strong enough by its self.

Simon

[Rob Morley]

You don't say if you want the desk to fit in an alcove - if you do then don't bother about uprights, just fix battens to the walls. If it's to fit in an alcove but you can't fix battens to the walls (rented property, whatever) then as long as the top is a snug fit you don't really need rigid joints to keep everything upright and stable.

Drawer runners are available in most DIY sheds for a few pounds.

You don't say what finish you want - I've made a solid, aesthetically pleasing desk using chipboard with a couple of battens screwed to the underside to stiffen it up, covered with some spare laminate flooring, with the front edge finished with some softwood that I rounded over, polished with wax and glued on. My current "compact workstation" is a quarter-circle of 19mm MDF fixed to the wall in a corner - I was going to paint it or cover it with leathercloth but I never got around to it, so it looks crap but it keeps the keyboard and monitor off the floor :-)

[Lurch]

On Wed, 14 Sep 2005 04:05:02 +0100, "mo" scrawled:

In that particular situation I'd be inclined to use some kitchen worktop screwed to the wall and forget about the legs, just affix battens to the wall.

Not sure where exactly, but you can buy the slidy bits to make your own pull out drawer.

Piece of worktop, bit of something for the drawer, couple of lengths of 2x1. I'd say £30-40 ish.