Sometimes an idea is born from a moment of complete boredom. While sitting through a particularly painful meeting one day, I took a break from writing snarky notes to my coworker and banged out a quick sketch for a wall that I could build around my desk at work. I liked the concept right away, as it was kind of a play on how much of my life I spend at work. From an execution standpoint, it was a project that would present numerous logistical challenges and push my woodworking abilities beyond what I had ever previously attempted.
Once I committed in my head to go through with the project, I immediately started taking measurements of my work desk and cube space. I figured that I couldn’t get away with building anything that annexed additional floor space, so I used the dimensions of my desk as the interior perimeter of the structure. Next step was to figure out how to build it so I could get it into (and out of) the office in a very short amount of time. I settled on a three piece design that included a main wall with a window, a long wall that hovered over the top surface of the desk and a small stabilizing leg that would be wedged in between the desk and the cube wall.
The exterior of the wall is made from a mix of MDF and pine molding with the center panels filled in with cedar shingle. One major logistical challenge was the scale of the molding. Molding used in full size homes is fairly thick and very expensive. When I went to draw up plans in Illustrator, it quickly became obvious that if I were to use stock molding for the entire project, the size of the wall would grow beyond what I was comfortable with. So as a result I had to plane down all of the wood used to about 75% of true home scale. The window is made from some scrap tempered glass shelves I had sitting on my back porch.
The interior wall is made from 1/4” drywall. This being my first time installing wall board, I wasn’t super impressed with my taping and mudding but I’m probably just being hard on myself. I knew I wanted to have a shelf on the long wall for shoes and toys, but wasn’t sure the best way to execute it. In the end I settled on a floating shelf design made from pine and MDF sheets.
With the help of a couple friends, I brought the completed structure into the office and all of the pieces slid together as designed. After months of labor and triple checking all of my measurements, it was satisfying to overcome all of the logistical issues and have the project completed. Time for a beer.
Super special thanks to Jesse and Alice for getting up so early to help me set this mother up. Couldn’t have done it without you guys.
