Home office desk with hardwood timber panel

[Simon]

This spacious D.I.Y. office desk came together quickly for a fraction of the price of a store-bought desk.

• The project
• Before and after
• More home office inspiration
• How to build a desk

The project

When my partner and I purchased and moved into our first house the frequency of trips to Bunnings exploded. It's great to make a home your own.

The house has more space for a home office setup, and one of my first projects to complete was a home office desk.

Previously I had been working from the dining room table, and for the first few days my setup consisted of outdoor timber furniture (not ergonomically friendly).

To build this desk, I purchased:

• A solid hardwood Birch timber panel, (2200 x 600 x 26mm)
• Rapidmesh Cusco furniture legs and leg braces
• Cabot's Cabothane clear water-based interior varnish
• Screws, sandpaper and other bits and pieces.

After deciding which side of the timber I preferred as the top side, I measured and drilled the furniture legs and braces in place. Getting them equally spaced from each edge of the timber and evenly centred along the 600mm depth of the table were the important considerations here.

I did a couple of runs of 120 grit sand paper to soften the top and sides and used damp cloth to clean off any dust.

Once that dried, the varnish applied with a brush brought out the great natural colours.

And last, an LIFX light strip around the back edge for some added detail.

I enquired through a number of furniture makers for something of similar size and look to what I made. Prices were anywhere between $1200 and $1700. The total shopping list for this desk was between $325 and $375, and I completed it a weekend (between many other projects).

Before and after

More home office inspiration

Bunnings Workshop member MyKindofBliss set up workspaces for two people in this coastal home office makeover on a budget.

Workshop member robchin took just an hour to build this simple and spacious desk using a SpecRite Teak Panel and RapidMesh Furniture Legs. 

There are also plenty of great ideas in our Top 10 most popular desk projects and our Top 10 most popular indoor furniture projects.

How to build a desk

Experienced Workshop member Peggers shared a step-by-step guide to building your own desk. 

The Bunnings team has also shared these helpful guides to get you started:

• How to build a desk for your home office

• How to build a desk

• How to make a timber floating wall desk

• How to build a kids workstation

• D.I.Y. trestle desk

• How to build a desk in a closet.

Let us know if you need a hand with your own project. Start a discussion and tell us what you need.

[BRK]

Great photos.

Someone I know loves using her picnic tables too!

I really like the before/after transformation.

Excellent work.

Cheers

[MitchellMc]

Are you thinking of building your own desk @BRK? Plenty of our members have completed their own with wonderful results.

Please let us know if you need any assistance starting or have questions.

Mitchell

[kanch]

thought I share my wood panel workstation setup

[EricL]

Hello @kanch 

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community. It's sensational to have you join us and thanks for sharing your amazing workstation setup.

What a beautiful corner table, but I am very much intrigued by the assembly of your table legs. Can you please tell us how you put them together and how you screwed it to the bottom of your table. It is one of the most unique leg assemblies I've seen in a while.

Again, thank you for sharing such a wonderful project.  

Eric

[Noyade]

Also looking forward to the answers Eric raised about the legs. 👍