Housing: The Desk Rejuvenation Project

When you have a laptop and Cintiq, it's a constant struggle to find the best ergonomic solution for desk arrangements. I still don't think I've figured it out, but apparently when you try and Google ideas, you still just get pet pictures and "find Cintiq desk arrangements at Lowes!" as results.

Because my brain can't focus on important things and instead is obsessed with list-making and plans, I started to make a little list of Ikea desk parts that I could buy, on a budget. Something that would be easy to dismantle, move around, and move out with. This is where Ikea excels: cheap, interchangeable, and easy to take apart and put back together.

Because we'd need to rent a car to get to the Ikea, this list had to be really efficient. This was my one chance to get everything I'd need for my new optimized office space. I wrote a list of my supplies, the stuff I'd need to store, my crafts, and measured out the wall space. I carefully wrote down bin numbers and item codes for all the components, then threw that list away after downloading the Ikea shopping app that just tells you all that. This undertaking made the Ocean's 11 heist look like a stroll in the grocery store to buy milk.

We rented a car for the day, and were outfitted with this little number:

Out-of-state plates, bright red, statistically the most pulled-over type of car. And if you look closely in the picture, you can see my 6-foot desk top wedged sideways through the interior of the car. I squashed in the back passenger seat while Tim drove straight and prayed we wouldn't have to merge too many times.

I didn't take any official "before" photos of my office space, in my eagerness to dismantle my crappy old desk, but here are the "afters":

It looks a lot cleaner, and is working out well so far. In fact, in between now and the time I took these pictures, I've emptied out one of the 3 drawers under the main desk, and taken the little stuff off the walls, just leaving just the diploma and Morrowind map. Way less cluttered.

For anyone interested in the individual components:

The table tops are the Linnmon design, and come in a variety of sizes. You can sometimes find tabletops in the "as is" section too, for cheaper (Tim's dark brown Linnmon corner desk was $5 instead of $45 because of a scratch). I got a 6' long one that was $25 because I picked the cheapest color, white. The craft/sewing machine table's top was only $6, and is 4' long I think.

I splurged and bought 4 Lalle table legs for the craft table, at $12.50 each. Ironically, they were harder to install than the $3.50 black metal Adils table legs for the computer desk. They only had gray for colors at my store, but they come in others.

On my craft table, I indulged and got this fish tray to hold my pencil holder and xacto blades.

I think it looks cool on its own - all together gives it a tacky beach house feel. Plus, being from Maine, I'm over the lobster association thing, even though it does look good on the tray.

I saw the lampshade on a blog and immediately needed it, because blue. It wasn't in stock at the local Target so I ordered it online and it thankfully looked good in person and wasn't broken. It's not available online anymore, even though it's still listed at the time of this writing, but the model is called "Room Essentials Hardback Faceted lamp shade", in "Avalon Sea." Very eloquent. For the base, I bought an $8 Januari base from Ikea and the 2 pieces miraculously were compatible. I looked at thrift stores for bases too, but you never know if the wiring is still okay in those. This combination worked out well and looks really simple and clean.

I have my small cutting mat on the table, and a cool chevron-y placemat that was on clearance at Target for 49 cents. In the red Helmer drawers set, I house all my craft tools and supplies, each drawer labeled and surprisingly deep. 

Fred helping me empty out the old craft drawers

So, in summary, I spent less than $200 on my new office set-up, everything is more hidden and streamlined, and there are some really nice colors going on. I'm happy to work at it now!

And Fred can really enjoy it too.