My desk – the Tabletop
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
At the end of 2006 I was thinking about buying a new desk. But the crazy thing was, I couldn’t find one. Until I was moving from Düsseldorf to Hamburg in spring 2007, I could not find the one I wanted to have. So, I thought about it and decided to build my own one.
The first idea was to build a workplace for me an my laptop. It took a while until I had the perfect concept. I had the idea to build a space into the desk where I could keep stuff, like my macbook. A simple drawer was too easy. I used the frame from an old clerical desk my dad found and built onto it a table top. I decided to create an open top leaf, which features two holes, one for the power cable and the other for his peripherals that are hidden under the top leaf. I counterbore all the screws which are used to build the desk in order to plug them up and paint them over. I polished and sanded the table, then primed, varnished, and polished again. I repeated this process 2-3 times. I installed a power strip inside the desk that can be turned on and off. The strip is powered by the red power cord that snakes out of the desk. The costs were relatively low, because the frame was free. The wood of the tabletop costs about € 30, then screws, varnish, hinges, power cord, and strip totaled about € 100.
But then the crazy thing just happened. The german blog stylespion asked his followers to contribute to the stylespion flickr-group in order to present the living and furniture ideas of us. After I uploaded pictures of my desk to my flickr account, Stylespion blogged about my desk. And after a short while expil.de (a german page about do-it-yourself ideas and the instructions) also blogged about my construction.
I came up with the idea to contribute my desk to some do-it-yourself or crafting groups at flickr and after some time the american blog unplggd.com (a page of apartment therapy) Asked me to write a little report about how i built the desk, so they could blog about it. My desk, I called “tabletop”, also got published at designspotter, lilagrün.de, stylinrooms, and Marke Eigenbau .
I want to say THANK YOU for all the positive responses. It makes me really happy to see how much you like the desk I builded. It was tough but the work was totally worth it!
Update:
Here is a current picture of my desk:
Mir gefällt die Idee sehr gut – nur das grün wäre mir etwas zu gewagt :-P
danke philipp! das grün sieht man ja nur, wenn man den tisch aufklappt. es sollte sich einfach etwas absetzen vom rest des tisches aber dennoch zum roten kabel passen!.
Sieht super sauber aus. Einzig, warum wird das rote Kabel so stark in Szene gesetzt, anstatt es aus einem der Beine herauslaufen zu lassen.
das rote kabel findet sich nochmal wieder in meinem zimmer an meiner selbstgebastelten lampe.
ich wollte ein kleinen farbakzent noch ins zimmer setzen, sonst sind die farben in meinem zimmer ja eher zurückhaltend, manche sagen “steril”.
absolut top hammeridee und geile umsetzung.
[...] tablet Für manch einen vielleicht nicht ganz neu, für mich dagegen umso mehr. Der Herr von Roitsch hat sich, aus Mangel an Alternativen, seinen Schreibtisch selbst gebastelt. Das würde ich auch [...]
Thank you for your great read, I bookmarked your site!
[...] I wouldn’t have builded my personal perfect desk myself, I would try everything to get one BOCK. I am amazed by the idea and the [...]
Tolle Idee und auch sehr schön umgesetzt!
[...] course, that’s a joke. I wouldn’t sue someone, because he has the same brilliant idea like me! In fact, I could be a little jealous, Diaz’ table looks a litte more professional. Yes, I [...]
What a great idea!!! Nicely done.
Thanks Nia, when I looked at your page, at first I thought it was a spam blog, but then I saw it’s Finnish. Pretty funny. I just got accepted at the TAIK, University of Arts and Design Helsink. Greetz
[...] My desk – the Tabletop | better taste than sorry.01 June 2010 [...]
[...] of you know that I am currently planning to create a desk. A second one. My first one, The Tabletop, is still the best desk I ever had. BUT I want to improve, I want to create a better one. A desk [...]
Wirklich cooler Tisch. Wollte meinen anstehenden Umzug dazu nutzen, meinen Arbeitsplatz vernünftig zu gestalten. Was selber bauen hatte ich bisher nicht so auf dem Plan. Aber nachdem ich diesen Beitrag gelesen habe, überlege ich mir das vllt doch nochmal… Danke!
Ich liebe diesen Tisch! Hab gerade echt über nen Tag danach das Internet durchforstet und dachte ich finde den nicht mehr. Hast du dazu eigentlich irgendwo ein tutorial? Würde den nämlich sehr gerne nachbauen. Schon einmal vielen Dank im Vorraus ;)
Lieber Erbauer dieses wundervollen Tisches,
wir richten gerade unser Büro neu ein und ich bin auf der Suche nach schönen Schreibtischen. Sollten Sie Lust haben eine Anleitung zu geben oder sogar Auftragsarbeiten anzunehmen wäre ich entzückt! Viele Grüße Cecile