Bed Stuy Reno

Desk and Return Bookshelf Construction Process

Desk and Return Finished Product

So, getting back to the house and our work. The desk and return were the last pieces to our lower level built-in bookshelf puzzle. We wanted a built-in desk near the kitchen so that if one of us was working (say on a blog or something like that), we could still be near the central action of the kitchen. Also, it would be a useful location to stash the computer for looking up recpies, playing music, etc.

The “return” portion, as we call it, returns out into the room, and does what we always told people we wanted it to do – divides the kitchen area from the living area, giving scale to each space, without visually closing them off from eachother.

The construction technique, clearly, was the same as with the rest of the project, but here on the return and in the desk’s open shelving, we doubled up on the depth. This was so the return could hold some of our larger books, and the desk shelving could hold file hangers and have room leftover for odds and ends.

In the end, both G and I were happy with the results – it looked a lot like what we had designed, didn’t cost a lot to build, and was an enjoyable project to boot. All in, our costs were around $600 bucks for the total project. One of the largest expenses were the self-drilling hex-head screws that we used – we liked how they looked when screwed into the joist hangers. As I mentioned before, the wood was your basic Lowe’s 2x8x10′s (maybe $5 a board), and the joist hangers were something like $0.59 cents a pop. (I’m not proud with how ruthless we were, but when we finished the project, we did actually return the chopsaw! We were working on a budget after all . . .) Most importantly, it put our mark on the lower level, and was a great focal point to the room. With all our books and objects in it, art on the walls over and around it, we felt it warmed up the house and gave it our own character.