The Office

So, the Ikea desk I purchased was not as ... put together as one would expect. It was too short and too wide. That doesn't mean I've given up. After several trips to Ikea and lots of troubleshooting, I've come to a couple fixes.

1) Attach Capita cabinet legs to make the desk taller
I considered the angled Capita brackets to lift the counter itself, but it required a thinner board to anchor itself on. Dejected, I eventually came to the conclusion that I could attach cabinet legs to the bottom of the desk ends. Unfortunately, I only purchased one set of legs so I headed back to Ikea tonight. Both desk ends now have legs and despite being a little wobbly, they work nicely.

2) The Desk Top is 6" longer than the width of the Expedit shelves
I have a couple things I can do with this. I can just let the desk be a little wider than the shelves and attach the desk ends to the shelves. Or I could saw off the excess. I'm leanings the "saw" option. Do I want to rent a saw or ask my contractor to do it while he's here this weekend? CHOICES ARE HARD.

3) Putting it all together
I was very close to putting a hinge on the left side so that I could swing out the desk from the shelf to work on the cables without being enter the desk. Currently, the desk top is tall enough where it runs into the molding on my window sill. I will have to move it out a few inches on the wall in order to clear the sill which also might be enough room for the hinge idea to work. Interesting.

In the meantime, I need to wait until this weekend to really continue further. I wouldn't want to saw the table top after putting in the corner brackets (which I have several of at this point). I'm also going to need to pull the entire shelf out to start stapling the wires for the alcove lights that I have purchased for the top shelves. I think I need to take a photo of how good the lighting looks with a Gundam in it ... hold that thought. Click here to see.

So there you have it. That's the effect I am going for. It looks pretty amazing. A Gundam kit in several top alchove over the 3 shelves on each wall. This totals out to 11 on each side. The Perfect Grades will half to go on top and will require a different lighting solution. I have an idea but it'll take some electrical work. It's going very well so far.

I'm a little disappointed I didn't take photos of this entire process, but I think I am going to when I start to work on the cable management and mounting the wireless router / monitors / power surge etc.