An attractive, easy, budget conscious desk made from 2x4 lumber and laminate flooring. With plenty of work space this desk is ideal for a #craftrooms or #makerspaces.
Our craft room / home office which is the center of our creative household was a mix of old mismatched furniture and just a general cramped mess, so I decided we needed a new desk in order to declutter the space and make it more functional. I knew I had to do something budget conscious because I only had a few hundred dollars to work with (and that needed to include a fresh coat of paint on the walls as well). After about a week of brainstorming I decided laminate flooring and 2X4 lumber would be a sturdy, durable cost effective solution. The materials only ended up costing me about $150 total. While I'm proficient enough with power tools I am by no means a professional carpenter, so I knew the design also needed to be simple. What I came up with is a build that I believe anyone could do and only took a couple days to put together.
This functional U-shaped desk was built in a weekend for about $150 dollars using limited tools.
Materials
12 8' pine 2X4s
2 4x8 .50 inch sheets of pine plywood.
6 .75 pine screen moulding
Wood stain
Exterior paint
4 6" carriage bolts
2 Boxes laminate flooring (the cheapest .99 cent per square foot available at Lowes)
2 Boxes 2" wood screws
2 Tubes liquid nails construction adhesive
Tightbond wood glue
.5 Finishing nails
Tools
Miter saw
Harbor Freight pocket hole jig
Drill
Router with flush trim bit
Finishing nailer
The Build
The first thing I did was cut up and assemble the left and right desk out of the 2x4 lumber. The center desk is just a bridge between the two and does not require legs. I put everything together using pocket holes and 2" wood screws.
I lightly sanded and painted the wood using an "oops" bucket of exterior paint I picked up at Lowes on the cheap for about 8 bucks.
When I picked up the plywood, I had the guy at the store rip the 2 sheets longways for me, so I would have 4 equal 2x8 pieces ready to go (which I only used 3 of).
Before screwing down all the table tops I did a test fitting to make sure I had all the tops square relative to the bases. (The laminate is not yet attached at this phase, I was just a test fitting.)
The half inch plywood was lined up and screwed to the 2x4 frames. There was no need to do any finishing or sanding on the plywood because the whole thing will end up covered by the laminate flooring. The "bridge" desk between the 2 side desks is simply attached using 4 carriage bolts (2 in each side). Using the carriage bolts allows the desk to easily be disassembled into 3 pieces so it can be moved in and out of a room.
The laminate flooring was then snapped together and glued to the plywood using liquid nails construction adhesive. I sandwiched it down by clamping another piece of plywood on top so it would dry nice and flat. I lined the flooring up the best i could on the plywood but didn't worry about the over hang on the flooring because it will be trimmed off afterwards.
After the glue dried I used a router and flush trim bit and trim off all the over hanging laminate and make it all flush. After the laminate was trimmed, I stained some trim to match and fastened it on with brad nails.
The Finished Product
I am super pleased with the results and my family loves the new set up and work space.
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