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About This Project
Does it seem like you’re always shuffling piles of paper trying to find that unpaid electric bill or your daughter’s soccer schedule? Do your dining table and kitchen counter tops have a permanent layer of paper? Free up your counter tops by building this home office in a guest bedroom. It fits on any 7-ft. 4-in. to 10-ft. section of wall and still leaves room for the bed.
In this story, we’ll show you how to plan and lay out the office, including how to:
- Buy the right cabinets
- Order or build the desktops and shelves
- Build the cord trough, bulletin board and swing-out desk
- Buy the lighting
...And you can install everything in one to two days! Features
- Lots of desktop with a swing-out work area
- File drawers and cabinet storage
- Open bookshelves
- Good lighting
- Large bulletin board
- Easy system for running wires and hooking up electronic equipment
Lay Out and Order the Cabinets
First choose the location for the office
and then make a scaled drawing of the wall you’re considering for the
desk. Make note of the overall length of the wall, any doors or
windows, and the ceiling height. Draw horizontal lines at 29 and 54 in. These represent the top of the base cabinets and the bottom of the wall
cabinets.
- Wall cabinets (purchased)
- File drawer base cabinets (purchased)
- Storage base cabinet (purchased)
- Cabinet end panel (purchased)
- Desktop (10 ft. 2-1/4 in. x 25-3/4 in. x 1 in. thick)
- Swing-out desk
- Corkboard
- Light valance (1x2)
- Middle shelves (6 ft. 1 in. x 12 in. x 1 in. thick)
- Top cap shelf (10 ft. 2-1/4 in. x 16 in. x 1 in. thick)
- Cord trough, 10 ft. long
- Cord trough covers (two at 5 ft. 1-1/8 in. x 3 in. x 1 in. thick. Match counter top E.)
- Cabinets: $1,700
- Counter tops and shelves: $700
- Materials for cord trough and swing-out desk: $250
At this point you need to talk to a cabinet supplier and find out the dimensions of its file drawer bases and wall cabinets. Draw these in on your plan. Don’t leave a span of more than 4 ft. 6 in. between base cabinets or else the desktop will sag.
Also note the end panel that’s necessary to cover the left-hand file cabinet and cord trough. Ours is 29 in. tall (this matches the height of the cabinet) and 30 in. deep. Now order the cabinets and end panel. You’ll be ordering at least two base cabinets and two wall cabinets and one 30-in. deep end panel. If your desk is longer than 7 ft. 4 in., as ours is, you’ll add base cabinets. Base units should be 24 in. deep and wall cabinets should be 12 to 14 in. deep.
Next, order or build the desktops and shelves to the dimensions shown on our plans. For strength and to minimize sagging, make them from 1-in. thick particle board and glue plastic laminate to both faces. We chose to edge them with a wood bullnose.
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