Building a Desk

I will be building this desk in the next few weeks. It fits into a corner of my living room and will house two computers. My main work station will be on the side with the added upper shelf, and a second desktop that my daughter uses will be on the top along the empty wall. The short section under the window (which has blackout drapes) will have my printer and scanner on it with a filing cabinet inside the "box" which will have doors on it so you can not see the cabinet.

Anyways just looking for suggestions on things to build into the desk. I have a pretty good idea already for cable management under the desk. And will be adding a dedicated usb charging hub as well as a hub for both computers for easy usb access. My computer is a laptop with a 27" monitor, the other is a desktop which I will build a bracket for under the desktop to keep it off the floor.

I should mention the little "L" shaped shelf on the blank wall can not be removed as much as i want to, my wife wants it there so it matches the wall on the other side of the room and so she can put pictures and other assorted "things" on it.

Pray do give us an insight into controlling a wife.

If I put that in our lounge ( for photographic reasons ) I am pretty sure the 5D3 would be chucked in the dustbin that evening , followed by an L lens every day until it was removed.

Right now I have a small desk in the master bedroom and another work station in the guest room. Our Living room in very large it has a full size pool table that is being moved into our expanded studio space so we have a lot of extra space. Running two photography companies she has realized we need a dedicated work area and she is not willing to give up the guest room to make it a full blown office.

Have you done a test run in that location for how the light is on your screen?

How is the spacing for the chairs if both people are at their computers? May be worth moving the printer/scanner bay into the corner so the second seat can be shoved down a little more.

Personally I would try to run as much of the cabling in a hidden channel under the upper shelf rather than under the desk. In the past I was a fan of keeping all the cords cable tied in neat orders and hidden well out of sight under desks, but after working in a setup that had series of cable tie points on a shelf above the desk... Well I really can't say I have any desire to go back to crawling on hands and knees to get at cables.

Good luck with the build.

Thank you, I thought about running everything under the shelf but was quickly denied lol. With USB hubs and power strips I dont see me crawling under the desk much after its all set up. If the window is open then there is a problem with light on the monitor, but we have blackout curtains on it already because it affects the TV as well. That window is seldom open. The space will probably be a bit tight if both computers are being used at the same time, but again not a lot I can do about that. I will have the filing cabinet part pushed down as far as I can once I get the actual measurements for the cabinet thats going inside that area.

Its still a design in progress and I will do my best to update as we go along.

You might think about having the laptop on a pull-out platform, drawer-like but not a full drawer, for ease of access, either if you need to reboot it or for when you want to use it as an actual laptop. I say "drawer-like" since you want easy access to the ports on the side, and you'll want good cooling. But when you need to power-cycle it, you'll need to be able to open it up. Probably a good idea to have the desktop on some kind of rails so it can be slid out too.

Great points Jon, I will work those into the design

Yeah. I've been thinking about the issue since I have 4 laptops in my workspace. Rebooting one is a nightmare. We're thinking about making a trip to IKEA this weekend which should help me resolve my problem. Not for the desk, but the ALGOT system units for a free-standing rack.

Littlejon Dsgn wrote in post #17695056
Right now I have a small desk in the master bedroom and another work station in the guest room. Our Living room in very large it has a full size pool table that is being moved into our expanded studio space so we have a lot of extra space. Running two photography companies she has realized we need a dedicated work area and she is not willing to give up the guest room to make it a full blown office.

Ah I see, the smart move, ...... "It was really her decision". ( usually works a treat )

re the filing cabinet
In my office this "box" is actually a slide out drawer - on runners with a filing cabinet set of hangers attached to the drawer.
If you did the same, you would be able to file more things?

Power points - never seem to have enough. I would make sure I had some that were easily accessible for temporary devices

Lighting? Downlights? Location? Temperature?

Best of luck - will be nice to work there