Quite the bedroom makeover - have a look (loads of pics)

5tephen

5tephen

5tephen

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16 Oct 2003
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Let me introduce my room...basically it's quite big but very strangely proportioned and I do a lot of work from home so things started getting ridiculous for lack of space. 4 or so years ago it took 4 months for me to find a desk that was big enough for what I would need but one that would also fit the corner. I had been using this setup for this 4 years before I decided to throw a few £1000's at it and change things around. Didn't exactly turn out to be just a new desk and a coat of paint - as you will see later...

Here's what I was working with.
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This pic is over 3 years old, check out the Nokia 8310 on the desk :) I couldn't even buy a big exec chair because there wasn't enough space to fit it. Afterwards, I treated myself to one that made the 4-year wait worthwhile, more on that later too.


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Hopeless quality pic taken with my SE S700i probably a year ago now.


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There was room to fit maybe 3 desktop towers side by side and I used to do a lot of work that required that. Back in uni I was always building computers for friends/family, and for server setups for customers I used to commission them here before deploying them on-site. E.g. the HP ProLiant seen there. Now, I just shift computers direct, and for all the time it takes to set up a server, I do it on-site now too. So I didn't really need a workbench-type setup any longer.



One more pic of the old setup, with my trusty Dell 2001FP. Below the desk was the huuuge subwoofer for the Logitech Z-5500 speakers, and about 20 plug points. Absolute mess but it was as tidy as I could keep it.
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Overall, the colours were just old, carpet so last tuesday, room was always full of dust and hard to keep clean. So the clearout began...
 
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Behold the yummy teracotta wallpaper or whatever it was. Looked alright but made the room very dark.


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Carpet - need I say more.


Here we go - no going back... some white undercoat, and then 2 or 3 coats of Dulux Jasmine White, can't remember exactly - this was over 6 months ago.
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More painting. The silly border all around the room pulled of a hell of a lot of plaster, took absolutely ages to get it all filled again, and even still didn't come out perfect.
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Getting there! :) Got some pretty expensive laminate flooring, £20 a pack, and could only get it in one of the 3 B&Q stores I visited. It was actually textured to match the grain pattern on the surface, and everyone who has seen it has to be told it's not real wood.


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More of the floor. It took my friend and I about 5 or 6 hours to do including time for a fry and a Subway (get the priorities right obviously), with the help of a jigsaw, angle measure, 9 packs of flooring and a lot of head scratching around the corner area.


Turned out nicely:
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The skirting really finished it off. It was actually a month after the flooring before it was put on, and was done after the desk was put in.
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That's looking very smart, nice job. :)

Sorry, but I can't help but think your old room decor looks like something from the Travel Lodge. :p
 
This is when it got interesting. A neighbour of my parents' house is a joiner/carpenter/electrician/ all-in-one genius type person, I look after his little computer set up (and used to teach him piano :p ) so I've known him for a long time and have seen some of the work he does.

With the help of a very rough autocad drawing provided by myself he made a rough template and brought it round, shaving bits off and sticking bits on here and there. I just had to stick the monitor on for a while to see what I might be getting, and it was already looking good.
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Between the above picture and the next is over 100 hours of work and it's a pity I didn't get any photos of the desk while he was working on it.
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This is actually two layers stuck together. Oak veneer, sanded/rubbed/polished 5 times over, and this particular pic doesn't do it justice but it's all I had at that time. The desk was slid in and out 5 times with him shaving bits off each time, and once in it fitted absolutely perfect - the left-hand edge swept right round to be completely flush with the protruding wall of the chimney breast. The mini-cabinet below that was a work of art in itself, with little notches and side holes taken out for cables and also fitted exactly to the wall.


Stopping at this point would have made me happy enough. But note the two little brackets stuck to the wall..
 
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While working on the desk he suggested a canopy along the top to balance out the desk. I wasn't fussed, and didn't see the point because the desk looked so good already, but he said to trust him and I did.
And a wall cabinet - again, sanded down & polished 5 times over for every surface, angled to fit the wall exactly and with sweeping shelves to complement the desk.

2 weeks later. How about it:
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3x 50W halogen spotlights and 2x blue LED lights at either end.

That's a pic of him working away while I provided tea by the gallon and enough buns to supply an army, while stopping for the odd photo :) Not much else I could do.
 
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The desk had to be taken out again while we worked on the cabinet + canopy.


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Not bad. The LED lights made an amazing difference.
Also note the detailing in the two additional sills on top of the canopy to hide the tops of the spotlights. Every rounded surface was measured and done by hand so you could only imagine how long this would have taken.
The wiring along the wall at the bottom of the photo is to a dual switch that sits to my right hand so I can control the lighting with no effort at all.
 
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All assembled and wired. The wiring took him 6 hours alone. 3 halogen lights were also fitted - one below the desk, one under the wall cabinet and one above the canopy and it works really, really well. The board under the wall cabinet is detachable and a notch has been cut along the back of the cabinet for any future cables that might be needed. Genius.


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Look how the wall cabinet + 3 layers of the canopy all sweep round to the exact edge of the wall of the chimney breast. The same hassle featured in fitting the canopy as was with the desk - in and out 4 or 5 times just to shave millimetres off at various edges, just to get it to fit exactly. With the weight of it, it took 4 of us + a lot of cursing to shift it into place, hold it up and edge it back out again.

Washed everything up and couldn't wait to get stuff onto it :) This was probably 5 or 6am by this point.
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Also look at the actual finish of the oak, he was really particular with his selection. You can also make out the little white switch to the right-hand side of the desk. It has two buttons - one for the spotlights + LED's, and the other for the 3 halogens (each of which can be switched off individually too).

Considering the number of silly angles in this corner, and how well everything is rounded and finished off, it looked as if it was relatively easy. Nope.
 
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