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Thursday, July 16, 2009

Hacked desk from Mikael drawer units

I will be posting some work station and home office hacks today and tomorrow. This first one is a home office redo from Matt Gusler. It's a big improvement, with almost double the space and a lot less clutter. The hidden CPU is also way cool. Check in later today for a compact printer rack.


The old office that needs a makeover

Matt explains, "I created this desk from 2 Mikael drawer units, one Vika Furuskog tabletop and 2 boxes of Capita 4" legs. Additionally, I used 6 replacement drawer pulls, a few mending plates and a couple of L-brackets: all purchased at a hardware store located conveniently next to the Ikea.

As an added feature, I knocked out the drawer bottoms and backs on the left Mikael unit and used it for storing/hiding my PC. Construction was simple. I built the Mikael units and measured where I wanted my desk top to go. I put it in place and secured it with L brackets. Using only the front and sides of the drawers on the left unit, I attached them together using mending plates and a couple of screws. I then used 3 coats of ultra clear polyurethane on the top and edges of the desk. For added protection, I use a Projs Desk Pad protector where my keyboard rests. Even the mouse pad, bamboo and bamboo vase came from Ikea.

The rug is from Ikea too....so are all the shelves. And the trash can. I'm pretty sure the only non-Ikea furniture is the chair! Jeez. Sorry about gritty picture quality, our camera is on it's way out and needs replacing."


Tadah!

See more of Matt's desk job on his blog. Photos can also be found on Flickr in this album.

11 comments:

  1. Looking good! Well done! Though you should do something about all those cables... If the Mikaels are not as deep as the table top (it kind of looks like they aren't in those pics), you might be able to mount a rain gutter underneat the table top.

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  2. Putting your CPU in an enclosed space like that is a terrible idea, I'm afraid. It produces a ton of heat and needs proper air circulation to prevent overheating, which can degrade performance and even kill the machine.

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  3. You could always remove the back of the unit to allow for better air circulation for the PC, maybe adding some brackets for added stability.

    Another neat idea would be to include the bottom of the drawer unit so you could easily slide the tower out of the cabinet if you needed to access it.

    It looks great! nicely done

    -allie

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  4. Please cease & desist from stealing my designs. I did not open source my design and thus seek royalties by the metric bucketload.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdigittl/3265286101/

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  5. Oh please Josh, like none of us have ever thought of it before...

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  6. Josh, if you invented the idea of putting a plank of wood ontop of two cabinets, you should have patented it :) I'm thinking of stealing your design too. Looks great!

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  8. metric bucketload- i think he was joking....

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  9. The idea of the last photo..with the tower is absolutely great!!!!! 10+

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  10. Looks good, but unfortunately dangling cables will ruin any nice setup.

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  11. Holy crap, i didn't realize this got posted! This is my hack!

    Anyway, I don't worry about the PC overheating because I knocked out the back of the Mikael file cabinet as well to increase circulation and let the wires through.

    My wife also attached a hidden usb hub to the bottom of the desktop recently for a little more functionality. It's pretty sweet.

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