New Desk Design! (Now With More Space!)

Niniel recently shared his desk set-up with his new monitor. I have to say that I loved his clean, candle-lit look! Inspired by Niniel, I thought I’d take a few minutes to share my past weekend’s desk endeavors as well!

For a very long time (3+ years to be exact), Brade and I have shared this desk. While it was workable it was, needless to say, quite cramped. Neither of us had very much personal space. Part of the reason that we shared the desk was because we just didn’t have a whole lot of space to put in a second desk…or so we thought. We had been talking about trying to find a bigger desk/desk solution for quite some time now, tired of knocking elbows while we played. We had just never gotten around to getting those conversations past the “I’d like” or conceptualization stages.

However, this past weekend, venturing out to purchase a laptop table for the living room had us looking at desks. And of course, once the bug go into my head, along with actually shopping while we were discussing it, I was excited to have a new project! And so we got home and I dug out our tape measure and started taking measurements. Ultimately we wanted to keep the desk we already had, not only to help keep cost down, but so we didn’t have to figure out how to dispose of it. We also knew it was something we’d like to do before Cataclysm, so that we’d have extra space once we were back at the computers a great deal.

We took measurement after measurement, added up the space, debated, discussed and finally decided to go down to Ikea to have a look around. After doing the math, we were fairly confident that we’d have enough room to purchase a second desk like we already had, and “L” them up. We had also hoped that we could purchase a connector for the two desks. As luck would have it, we could purchase another desk. However, because we favored the glass top desk, they did not have the connector option. That was fine, it just meant that we had a huge square gap between the corners of the desks – I could find a way to fill that space.

We got home, got everything assembled, and I have to say that I’m quite pleased with the results! We bought a silk tree to fill the gap in the desks, but I am still considering having a table made to fit the space. It’s a little snug between the front desk and the wall, but we can still maneuver through the space without problem and can get the vacuum and what not through it easily – it’s almost as if we just created a bit of a snug hallway. The best part is that we each have our own space again! And that is well worth it in my opinion!

The new desk space, with both desks, and plenty of room to move about.

My desk – with lots of space! And yes, that is a framed map of Middle Earth on my wall =P

For those that may be curious, and/or considering a desk/office renovation project of their own, the total cost of our little weekend remodel was ~$560 USD. However, we picked up a few non-essential things like a couple of blotters ($70/two), the non-essential silk tree ($50), the little shelf unit you see on my desk ($35) and a couple of desk lamps ($100). The cost also included a new surge protector (we shared one before), and longer cords to compensate for the additional length needed to get from the computer to the router (combined total $50). If you stuck just to the absolute bare bones, it probably could have been done for under $300 USD, depending on how many of the desk components you needed/wanted to purchase.

All in all, for what the end product ended up being, I think it was pretty well done and a relatively economical solution to our problem!