Custom desks for a small space

We recently moved our office into what was once our living room-ish area, and we had did not have much to work with. Aside from the space being pretty small, we are also renting. Our land lord has strong feelings of admiration for the plaster walls in our place, and thus does not want any holes put in them. So we could not touch the walls, and yet we wanted a way to be able to have a versatile working/living space.

Our first solution was "The Wall Desk".

We created this design so we could "fold up" our desks at the end of the day. They also take up very little room hanging on the wall like that, and they hold a bunch of stuff. (Just to clarify, the desk is hanging from a beam at the top of the wall. So we are still not putting any holes into the plaster).

Each desk is made of out of a single sheet of plywood. The work surface has these fun carve outs for pencils and coffee mugs (of various sizes ^_^). The back cubbies are made from thin ribs that are glued together and have an aluminum rod to keep them in place.

With this first desk created, we realized that in order to be able to lean on the work surface with the weight of a body, they really needed to be held held more securely by their back. If only we could, say..... screw them to the wall...

So we made our own walls. And we attached them to the top beam of this one:

These designs were created with the paintbrush tool in Illustrator. We wanted something very organic that could show off the smooth clean lines the ShopBot can do.

We made them 2" thick so they could easily support weight and take long enough screws, while still protecting the plaster wall behind.

We then attached the fold up wall desks to these "organic wall pieces".

We stained Jeffrey's desk with a lighter, more natural stain. Here you can see that the cubbies on the back are made of ribs, sandwiched together. You can also see the aluminum pin that holds them in place on the curves and the ends.

The two desks are identical aside from their colors.

The surface of the desk easily lifts up....

and closes with a latch on the side.

When the desks are in their closed position, they will have custom picture frames attached to them. This phase of the project is still in design. The frames will be 3D carved by the shop bot. And they will look great!

But for now they are our wonderful new functional desks.