My Perfect-Fit Workstation (Cheap & Alternative Storage Ideas)

Member Name: Nibelung

Product:	Cheap & Alternative Storage Ideas
Date:	16/02/03 (1589 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Built to my exact needs., Method adaptable to many table-like applications

Disadvantages: If you can find what you want ready made, get it - this won't be any cheaper

Having recently set myself the task of installing a second networked PC in our home, and having got the technical side out of the way, I set about finding a desk to sit it on. (Just as soon as the categories appear, I'll be writing about the technical aspects.)

We had agreed that this was to be a minimalist "workstation", i.e. just the PC case, monitor, keyboard and mouse. No printers, scanners, no nothing. In fact, the main case, being a mini-tower in format, would be sat under any desk, saving even more space.

We also agreed that the only logical place to put it was in one corner of the dining room on as small a bench as possible. Ideally, this needed to be tailored to our needs, i.e. about 4'0" wide, 2'6" deep on the left, tapering to 1'6" deep on the right. That way, it wouldn't dwarf the small bureau next to which it was to sit, and blend more easily into the corner. The overall image I had in my head was of a table top, straight-edged at the back and sides but slightly kidney-shaped at the front.

WHAT TO BUY

It was fairly obvious that tables this precise shape are going to be as common as blue moons, as a perusal of the Brent Park branch of IKEA soon confirmed.

However, what IKEA do have are free standing table legs, one called BYGSTE at £13 each, and the others, KAJ, £34 for a set of 4. The former are chrome-plated, and the latter a more subdued silver-grey paint-finish with a smart polished aluminium detailing at the top.

They are both extendable to suit most heights from low dining table to high breakfast bar. My final purchase, the KAJ legs are marked at 1 cm intervals for ease of level set-up. It strikes me that these would be pretty useful if your table needs to stand on an uneven floor, or with one leg on thicker fitted carpet, such as that encountered by the skirting board.

The tabletop was a dilemma in itself. What was needed was a material that
was a) fairly decorative, b) strong and capable of taking screws, c) workable and d) affordable.

Then I remembered some off-cuts of very thick (20mm) plywood I had in the shed. Whilst only a foot square each, they gave me the means to practice and test them for strength. No amount of standing on them, unsupported, would bend them to any extent. Also, putting a more decorative chamfered edge on them with my router plane was successful without causing any damaging rips to the edge. Oh yes, and they looked good when treated with a coat of matte varnish. Plywood has this amazing ability for being stronger than a similar thickness of real wood, which tends to be strong in the direction of the grain, and weaker across the grain. Ply-wood with its sequence of layers all at 90 degrees to each other, embodies equal strength in all directions, plus a resistance to warping.

So 20mm thick ply it was to be. The sooner someone decides that we go "metric" in its entirety the better. I'm getting sick of talking about m.p.g., when I buy petrol in litres, and likewise a 4' x 4' piece of 20mm plywood is a nonsense too!

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

I jig-sawed the new board to the shape needed, having already decided which side had the more "characterful veneer", rounding its two front corners using that essential precision tool, a biscuit barrel for my markings! The circular-section legs would later be screwed down concentric to these curves to compliment the shape.

My next job was to chamfer the main board's edges with my router plane, to make it look a little less utilitarian, and sand off any rough patches. Then I placed the board face down and screwed the 4 leg mounting-cups into place at each corner, using the 20 screws provided. The legs would later be fitted to those mountings.

Then I measured out the base requirements for the PC case with a generous margin of about 5 cm all round, and cut the of
f-cut of plywood to size.

I drilled a hole at each corner of this plank, into which I placed 6mm threaded stud (this is like a very long screw with no head**, designed to be hack-sawed to length). Each of these four rods had to be tailored the height of the PC case (plus an allowance for some airspace above and enough extra to pass almost all the way through both sheets of ply).

**If you smile at the thought of studs, long screws and "no head", then your mind is elsewhere and on no account should you be considering the use of power tools right now!

Then I drilled four smaller pilot holes into the underside of the table top to match the spacing of the holes in the shelf, being careful to make sure the shelf would hang far enough forwards so that any overhang of the work top was not going to limit access to the CD-ROM drive.

Turning the worktop over onto the "good" side, I enlarged these holes with a 10mm-wide hole-cutter down to a depth just enough to lose a 6mm nut and washer in, and still leave room to cover the finished item with wood-coloured filler. (A hole-cutter is a cheaper alternative to a wide drill-bit, but looks more like a rotating spade).

The studs through the lower shelf were clamped into place with nuts and washers on both sides, leaving as little thread showing underneath as possible - you wouldn't necessarily want to catch yourself on the bare end of this stuff whilst grovelling on the floor one day, although filing it off smooth helps!

With the shelf upright, studs facing skywards, I put 4 more nuts onto each stud followed by their washers. I ran them down the studs about 4 cm to begin with.

Then I offered up the studs to the 4 holes in the underside of the worktop - you might want to do this with the main legs fitted to give you some elbow room under there.

I put a washer and nut onto each stud as it protrudes through the worktop. Then I screwed t
hem down, by the minimum number of turns required for a good "bite" without protruding above the level of the worktop.

The final stroke was to bring the four lose nuts back up each stud until they clamped onto the underside of the worktop.

Voilà - four dabs of filler, some sanding and two coats of matte varnish later, and I had my tailor-made workstation.

OTHER REFINEMENTS YOU MIGHT LIKE TO TRY.

If you find the threaded studs a bit utilitarian (mine were stainless steel, so they don't look that bad), you could always sleeve them in chromed wardrobe rods, cut to a suitable length. In fact, this would make screwing the whole shebang together a lot simpler as it would only require nuts at either end of the stud. Screw pressure would clamp the chromed rod into place and hold the shelf at the correct distance all in one go. Alternatives to the expensive chromed rod would be copper central heating pipe or circular plastic cable-trunking. This could be sprayed silver to match the IKEA KAJ legs

If your own space needs dictate an even smaller tabletop, you can buy a sliding drawer for your keyboard (£15 in PC World), which means that the top only needs to house the monitor and mouse mat. I may fit one of these anyway.

All bolts, washers, studs and the chromed wardrobe rail and plastic trunking are available from www.screwfix.com.

All in all, it has cost me about £55 to build, and I'm aware that many PC workstations are available for this kind of money, but none fit the corner I had in mind so exactly.

OK, you may have no interest in building a workstation at all, and if so, thank you for reading this far. However, this idea of a tailored-to-fit table, buying the legs, and finding your own tabletop could adapt to several applications.

What about those mock-Swedish nicknames that all the IKEA items have, eh? Can't wait for the KRAPPSIT toilet seat and the BOGGRÖL toilet pape
r dispenser.

Apparently, the DILLDÖ coat peg was very popular, as it didn't need batteries.

p.s. If anyone is interested in how it turned out, I'll happily send them a digital photo of the finished item.

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