A few years ago when we bought this house, my wife and I used our office as a place to catch up on some work after hours or if I was engaged for on-call. We started to use the office more and more as work load increased and we finally got to a point where we needed an official office. This is what it looked like before we started.
We knew we wanted a T-shaped desk which would accommodate both of us as well as space for our work and personal computers. We also decided that it would be cool to have shelving above the desk to display our accomplishments and pictures so this is where the research and Pinterest pins began! This desk is not a true built-in desk. It's just pushed back to the molding and fitted tightly to the wall where possible to give that appearance. I wanted to make it easy to remove later down the road in the case that we no longer liked or needed this setup.
The top shelving was created from 2x4, 1x6, 1/4 Maple Plywood and painted Sherwin-Williams extra white. The holes for the lighting were pre-cut before installation. The desk frame and cabinets are built from Maple Plywood and painted with Sherwin-Williams extra white. The desk top is built with a layer of Maple Plywood on the bottom and a Edge Glued sheet on top surrounded by a 1x2.
There is a cable management tray located under each sitting area that houses the surge protector and keeps most of the cables out of site. This was created with 1x6s and 1x4 nailed together then pocket-holed to the desk frame.
I originally stained the tops with Kona color stain but my wife didn't think that matched well with the floor so I re-stained it with Polyshades Stain espresso. After installing the the tops, I cut 5 holes in the top for plastic grommets to help with routing cables under the desk. There is a bead of caulking around the desk edge to give that built-in look and feel.
For the lighting, I ran all of the wiring through the shelving frame and then fished the wire through the wall down to the floor where the power cable connects to the outlet. The 12 SuperLED lights themselves were glued into the cut holes and wired before enclosing the shelves. The power switch for the lights is located under the bottom shelf in the center. The lights for the front cubes were installed in a similar manner and the power switch for those is located right behind the front cabinet. I also installed 2 exhaust fans to help keep the PC located in the rear center cabinet cool.
This project was well worth the investment as it gets used daily. We love that this setup allows us both to comfortably work beside each other. Unfortunately we both usually have several calls a day and my wife ends up having to relocate to the 3rd floor where we have a separate desk set up. That desk is blogged here: https://www.tlbworkshop.com/post/work-from-home-desk
Thanks for checking out my blog on how to build a home office desk!
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