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

[5tephen]

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

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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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 ) 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.

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..

 

[5tephen]

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:

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.

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.

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.

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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Started wiring everything up the next day.

The printer is in the cabinet to the left of the above pic. Fitted perfectly, with a hole on the side of the cabinet for the wires to be tucked into.

The odd cable still hanging around the floor, but I got onto that.

What can I say. Enough room for 3 chairs now with the space I've got.

 

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Also enough room for:

I gave the 2001FP to my brother and bought myself a 2407WFP. The second one was for a customer and I tried it alongside my own to see what it would look like, but didn't fancy it. Will probably for for a 30" later.


and

(Forgive the cables behind the PC there, they were previously held up by adhesive grips which I then replaced with hooks nailed to the board supporting the desk)

The space available now is just incredible. So much more floor space to sit at plus about 10 times the working area for the exact same corner I've always been at.

The printer space can be seen there. In the smaller shelf below that I have about 10 sockets and metres of wires all stuffed in out of the way of view. There's another 15 sockets or so sitting on the floor just beside the cabinet for easy access.

 

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This is my setup as of this morning, taken with the 2mp phone because my mum broke my camera.

Also spent a few hundred quid on Venetian blinds for the house, and they match the desk very well.

The shelves are packed full of accounting stuff, stationery, gadgets, business cards, books, you name it And PDA+phone docking stations, landline, joypad, joystick, coasters, post-its, alarm clock + light switch all within arm's reach. And now a nice surround setup from the speakers too.

Had to include a photo of the Herman Miller Aeron chair somewhere 2 weeks after the room was finished I thew £650 at one and haven't looked back. The first decent chair I've had in 4 years and will have it for life knowing there's very little better out there if any.

So there you go. The whole thing cost maybe £3000, plus a lot of my time for painting/flooring/general helping with the desk. I was given a huge favour by my neighbour, doing it for a cut-rate price and if I had went for some company from the yellow pages it would have been 10 times the price, although price wouldn't have been the point there because I just wouldn't have had it done by anybody else. He done some swearing at me, and kept going on about how he could have built and fitted 3 or 4 kitchens in the time it took him to do this for me.

 

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Andelusion - I loved the dual screens but it left no room on my desk for the laptop plus other bits and pieces unfortunately. Plus the two had to sit at an angle to each other, I would've wanted them to be in line with each other.

Whitecrook - I have about 5m of spiral wrap here but it's a bugger if I ever have to detach one of the cables or add another one in Plus the fact that they're well out of view already so it would be unnecessary. In fact, I peered under the desk just now to see what state they were in, and that was the first time I've seen or looked at the cables in months

 

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Here's the rest of the room, just realised I never even included it in this.
Firstly, a pic of the state of it back in early 2003. Absolute disgrace.

The stacked wall cabinet:

Also got new bedclothes and matching curtains.

Re-arranged the room to move the wardrobe and cabinet together into the corner, and they fit with no more than an inch to spare Was obviously always made for that corner but it took me 4 years to realise it.

 

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Thanks for the comments guys, will have to show this thread to him as a little reward for his work.

jdickerson - there is no better place for the tower, I shifted it around all sorts of areas but this was the only real suitable one. (a) it never gets hit by the chair, (b) keeping it there still lets me see the blue glow + internals through the window It's more awkward because I have to run cables the whole way round the desk to get to it but it works. We actually had planned out dimensions for an aluminium bracket to be bolted to the wall and have the computer sitting on it, but I didn't see the point.

That photo of the cables under the desk is actually 4 or 5 months old, they have been tidied up considerably since that. I might consider getting some sort of cable tidying for the sake of completeness. Will definitely get a couple of good pictures for the wall though.

The house is owned by my parents but I live in it and pay for whatever's needed for it, it was bought 5 years ago for us + rest of family to go through university. I wasn't sure if I would stay here after uni or go elsewhere, but with the current house price situation I'm going to hold off for a while yet. If ever do get a place though I'm going to get the room dimensioned the exact same as this one so I can bring the desk with me

 

[5tephen]

superb job. Cant you replace the lights with something more energy effecient or am i just being a hippy

Maybe but I don't care The leccy bill was already over £100 a quarter before this system was in place, as long as it doesn't hit £200 then I know it'll be grand

Was actually just thinking there of replacing them with BMW angel eyes

Can't take him out for beers as he doesn't drink He just demanded free computer services for life which suited me alright.

To burned_alive - it's a 3 bed house, an end terrace with a triangular section protruding from the side wall. It's actually the triangular part of the wall that's given me the space to put a desk in my room in the first place! I guess it's the fact that the room was so weirdly shaped that I needed a custom built desk at all, and then ideas just started coming.

 

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The shelving doesn't come out far enough to block the light in any big way, plus yes there is the window at the other end. On the whole though there's easily two extra hours of light per day in the room now compared to before, mainly because of the white paint compared to the dull red.

Reason i asked is i was just wondering why dont have it all in a seperate room to your bedroom

No space. The other two rooms are otherwise occupied unfortunately, and there's only a living room and kitchen after that.

 

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should have got Karndean flooring.

It's should have got.

 

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The cables have been tidied up a fair bit since those photos, nothing ultra-tidy though since I literally only see them about once a year. Even when down plugging stuff in or working at the back of the PC I don't even see them as they're tucked away.

Cost wise I think there was something like £800 of materials, and at least 120 hours of his time. I can't believe the effort he put into it for something that wasn't his own, but that's why I entrusted the task on him Would just have stuck with what I had otherwise as anything done by someone else would never have been right. Ye just don't get people to do this sort of work to such a standard any more.

 

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so like, this has inspired me, because like u were, i am currently living in a pit, and i really need a proper desk and chair and room. i like diy things so am really considering to have a go at doing it myself, though obviously it wont be as good as yours as yours is simply stunning!

i got a few questions so i can get an idea of how to do this, one of which is, the main desk, is is one whole piece of wood? or is it a couple of pieces assembled together? was the curvature cut out by the carpenter, or did it come like that? iv got an idea of how i want my desk to look, but there is no way that i have the skill to make a single piece like that...

It is two pieces stuck together. It's actually oak veneer so probably two sheets of MDF. Then polished and sanded 5 times over. The weight of the thing was ridiculous Two of us had to carry it upstairs and when fitting, we had to lift it in and out at least 5 times while he sanded little corners off to get a perfect fit. Not nice I tell you.
I can only assume it was done from a template since the two sheets had to be done, plus the canopy along the top. The canopy follows the same curves as the actual desk except recessed in a few inches.

 

[5tephen]

is that 2 layers stuck together, or 2 pieces? if pieces, where are they both joined?

It's actually 2 layers on top of each other, but also 2 pieces side by side. One large and one a fair bit smaller, and they're joined in such a way that the grain looks like one single sheet You can see the join here, between the two wiring holes:

The reason was because that was the biggest sheet available, the next biggest sheet was 3 or 4 times the length & width which would have been ridiculous money and ridiculous wastage.
It's hard to notice in any photos or even when looking at the desk in the flesh. Even more so because a speaker and my mouse mat both sit over it