In May 2012, while considering reorganizing my room, I looked around for a desk that had a large vertical area suitable for mounting a television or a couple of monitors. This seemed like a pretty straightforward idea, and I was ready to drop a couple hundred bucks for a pre-built solution. My search came up empty, so I went looking for some graph paper, and started to design the desk myself. Not long after I'd put pencil to paper, I remembered that I'd installed Google Sketchup a couple of years previously. After reading and watching a handful of tutorials, I went at it, and with some help from my friends circular saw, jigsaw, and cordless drill, I ended up with a surprisingly robust desk for less than I've paid for several new-in-the-box desks I've gone through over the years.
As a matter of procrastination, I decided to clean up the Sketchup file and dump it into the Sketchup 3D Warehouse, which asked for a "More Info" URL when I published the model. Never truly trusting third parties to keep files forever, I'm also hosting the file. Click here for the Sketchup of my DIY computer workstation desk.
The materials required to build the desk cost just shy of $100, not counting stain or a glass top. Be sure to drill pilot holes for the screws, lest you split the wood.
I plan to get a custom glass top cut, but in these photos you can see that I am making do with a Ikea glass tabletop that I picked up on the cheap in as-is.
I used four packs of Ikea LEDBERG light strips for the indirect lighting on the side, and a couple of CFLs hidden behind the TV for additional light, and re-used the sliding keyboard tray from my old desk. So keep scrolling for some photos, or follow this link back to bitrotten.com.
