Usable computer desk for a small place

Materials: desk, wood boards, hobby hinges and magnetic latch from Home Depot

Description: After the birth of our daughter, our extra bedroom became a baby room. This meant that our computer had to move out into the living room of our small two bedroom apartment. With not much space in our apartment, we went to IKEA to see if we could find a small desk that could fit in the corner of our living area. We found the LINNARP desk to be the perfect size for the space, but we had to deal with a narrower table surface depth. Furthermore, the desk was just a tad too tall to type comfortably for long periods of time.

To remedy this situation, I got the idea from other projects here on IKEAHackers.net to create a keyboard tray out of the drawers portion of the desk that would not only increase the working surface of the desk, but also allow everything to be hidden out of sight when guests came over. After all, our computer was going to be in the middle of our living room.

The problem was that there was no existing middle drawer to modify into a keyboard tray, so I had to create a new drawer in the desk. Essentially, I reused the drawer rails and created one giant pull-out drawer out of the 3 drawer compartments in the desk. The sides of the pull-out tray were reused from the original drawers, and the bottom board was purchased from Home Depot. The new door on the front of the desk was then fashioned from another piece of wood, and affixed to the desk with two 2" hobby hinges. The door stays closed courtesy of a 97-cent magnetic latch. I reused the drawer pull from the desk in an attempt to make the new desk look similar to the original LINNARP when closed. The door was then painted satin black which doesn't perfectly match the original black, but it's close enough that you can't tell unless you really know what you're looking for.

I have a wireless keyboard and mouse which helps to keep things clean (no extra wires running in and out of the desk). With this new modification, I'm able to sit farther back from the 24" monitor as well as sit at a more comfortable height when typing.

~ Jimmy Su, Texas