Guest Bedroom Project (Part I)

As part of making the upstairs more useful we have decided to turn my basically abandoned den into a guest bedroom.  This project will have three main parts: replacing the computer desk, painting and applying mold inhibitor, and adding new furniture.

The existing desk is an L-shaped particleboard monstrosity we have been toting around for a very long time. It is nearly impossible to move, it is damaged in parts and takes up way too much space to share with a bed in that room. 

It's gotta go, that much is obvious.

Well, that's fine but the computer still needs to live there as do the scanner and printer.  It would be a real cabling hassle to move the modem and router so those need to stay put as well.  These needs pretty much nail any replacement desk to the right side of the room.

A full sized bed will share the space with the computer desk.  The bed will need to be centered in the room to prevent guests from clonking their heads on the sloped ceiling... You know, as I write this it occurs to me that we might need a futon in there instead of a traditional bed.

Sigh.  Whatever.  We'll badly plan, design, and build that bridge when we come to it.

I have been looking forward to throwing together a new desk for a while now but time, money, resources, and/or the will to do it has prevented that from happening. Time is of the essence here because a number of projects need to get done within the next 3 weeks so this is going to be a pretty simple design.  A “Shaker” style computer desk, if there is such a thing.

We got my wife's very simple desk from an unfinished furniture store.  Well, I mean, the store itself was finished... it didn't have only three walls or no roof or something like that.  The furniture inside was unfinished, you understand. Not tables with 2 legs... stop looking at me like that. 

We just wanted something 1) simple 2) made of real wood and 3) cheap for the office/bedroom downstairs.  It was the first two.  It was not the last one.  As a matter of fact, they must get a lot of sticker shock induced comments in the store because they had on their marquee for many months "DO NOT JUST COMPARE PRICES COMPARE QUALITY".  Comes off either elitist or desperate, IMHO.

I definitely could do better price-wise by at least $100, and that includes a small printer stand. As for quality, I guarantee you it would be good enough.

After this long and unnecessarily verbose preamble, there really isn't too much to write about that the pictures doesn't say itself:

• I used the same type of pine prefab top as I did for the Art Table project. 
• The legs are not tapered, made of poplar, and are held in place with pocket joints. 
• I cannibalized the keyboard slides from the old desk. 
• I decided not to build a monitor stand like the old desk had to keep the price low.

The total construction time so far has been 2 hours. Total cost for all materials (wood and pocket joint screws) for this part of the job has been about $70.

Not bad.

Tomorrow I should be able to build the printer/scanner stand and stain both the pieces. I guess we will call the Guest Bedroom Project about 20% complete for now.

(To be continued...)