A Home Built Office Desk

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Theoretically, the top of your keyboard should be the same height above the floor as the bottom of your elbows. This distance (minus the thickness of the keyboard) is the optimal height for your typing-table top. If it is wildly different from the height of tables you've been working at all your life, don't be a bit surprised. Society has been trying to mash us all into the same configuration since we all had to sit at the same size desks beginning in first grade.

But this is a custom-made office, build it to fit and satisfy you, and not the Department of Education. Test your calculations by stacking boxes or whatever, and typing at the new height for a while.

If more than one person will be using the table, measure both (all) and see if the differences can be compensated for by adjusting chair height or using more than one chair. Otherwise, find a height that offers the best compromise. Don't be a martyr though; after all, this is your office.

Locating Table Supports

ATTACH TO WALL
1. Fasten horizontal support board to vertical wall studs.
2. Connect door/desktop to backboard with flat brackets (inlet for best fit to wall).
3. Fasten door to support with "L" brackets at ends and middle of door.

Scribe the typing-top height on the wall that will host the typing table. Make another mark the thickness of your table (usually, 1 1/3") below it. This will be the height of the top of your typing table support board and the height that you must make the end supports, file cabinet, shelves or whatever.

With a carpenter's level and long straightedge or chalk line, mark a level line at the measured height extending out from your corner, and as long as your table (78" or 80", unless you shorten it yourself).

Use a magnetic stud finder to locate nails in the vertical beams (studs) in the wall and mark their locations on the line. Now, use a power driver and drive 2 1/2" or 3" drywall screws through the wall into studs to fasten an unwarped length of 1x2" pine to the wall, with the board's upper surface even with the line.

At the corner, use the level to mark a line on the other wall obtaining 90° from the first line. This is where you will place the board to support the end of the typingtable door. Cut a length of 1x2 as long as the door is wide (less the thickness of the board already attached to the wall) and fasten to studs. If less than two studs are located under this short strip, use a "molly" (a wall anchor) to secure a second screw firmly behind the paneling, wallboard or lath and plaster (see illustration below).

To secure the door to the boards, fasten fiat "L" brackets—out-jutting faces even with top edge of support boards-to the support board. Locate one at the end of each support board and one in the middle of the long support board under the center brace inside the hollow door (tap the door to confirm the brace's location—it's where your tap becomes least hollow-sounding. Measure distance of brace from ends of the door and locate the bracket the corresponding distance from ends of the support board.

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