When something you want is not available for purchase, well, you can always build it yourself! I recently moved and have a dedicated office room now. I wanted something which combines the practicality of a workbench with the look of regular living room furniture.
When researching products, I found that workbenches or industrial shelving units have too much of a garage look and would never get girlfriend approval. Regular cabinets were only available with a maximum depth of 40 cm, which is a bit too small for my taste. I also looked into custom-made furniture, which landed slightly outside my budget at roughly 1 000 € per unit (I want two units). ChatGPT suggested looking at kitchen cabinets, which do have suitable dimensions (typically 60 cm deep) and a better price point (maybe on the order of 300 € per unit), but I could not find something with a decent design, a functional layout, and nice-looking sides (as the cabinets are usually intended to be installed in a kitchen where the side walls are not visible).
Lacking any readily available solution, I decided to build it myself based on IKEA Kallax shelving units. Inspiration came from the fact that I had used a very similar setup in my previous apartment, although it was just an untreated piece of MDF placed on a Kallax (and crucially not secured in any way), so I knew that the basic construction would work. Additionally, I had recently upgraded my desk, and the old desk did not sell on eBay and was still sitting in my basement. The desktop board was still in good shape and would become the top of my new creation.
After my recent move, I was really impressed with IKEA. They have really good options in the low and medium price ranges, their products are generally immediately available for pickup, and they have a very functional website with, e.g., accurate filtering by dimension and even integration with Apple AR. These are all areas in which I felt other furniture stores were way behind.
And IKEA has some incredibly inexpensive options, which is great if you want to do any modifications, because if you make any mistakes, it is not the end of the world. The basic 2x2 Kallax is only 40 € in black, and if you take it in white, it is even cheaper at 30 €. One thing I noticed is that they made the felt pads hexagonal instead of round. I assume this is because hexagons perfectly tile the plane, allowing them to save material and reduce waste.
The Build Process
For materials, I got two Kallax 2x2 shelving units plus inserts with drawers and doors from IKEA, MDF boards cut to size and screws from the hardware store, and decorative foil and rubber mats from Amazon.
As I mentioned above, my old desk was also still in the basement, so I wanted to use the desktop as a work surface for the workbenches. The desk was 160 cm × 80 cm, so my dad helped me cut a 60 cm section from each end, resulting in two good pieces of 80 cm × 60 cm and a scrap piece from the middle. The cut edges will be placed against the wall, so they will not be visible.
First, we used my dad’s mini circular saw, which did not work that well, so we finished the first cut by hand with a Japanese saw, which took about 30 minutes. Exhausted, my dad searched for and found a new (apparently sharper) blade for the mini circular saw, which worked a lot better, and the second cut took only a couple of minutes. Power tools are really a game-changer.
I made some drilling tests on my old unit, which will be replaced with what we are making now. One thing to keep in mind is that IKEA panels are generally not solid, so if you want to drill into them, you cannot put as much load on any screws as with, say, a piece of plywood. Indeed, if tightened too much, a screw can break through one side of the panel. Testing this beforehand allowed me to get it right on the final build.
Next, I put some self-adhesive decorative (furniture) foil on the edges of the MDF boards and measured, pre-drilled, and countersunk all the holes. I used a paper template to quickly mark every location and always drilled through two matching pieces so the holes would align perfectly.
For the top part, I also used the corresponding MDF piece to transfer the holes into the tabletop and pre-drill there as well.
I also got some 3 mm rubber sheets, which I cut to size using the MDF boards as templates (basically, the more templates you can use and the less you have to measure, the better — foreshadowing). I did not pre-drill the rubber sheets. The idea is for the rubber sheets to absorb any vibrations, as I plan to place my 3D printer and pen plotter on top.
One annoying thing was that I got the screws from the loose hardware section instead of buying boxes, and some of them required differently sized bits, although the screws were otherwise identical.
Final assembly then happened upside down. I placed the desktop board, one rubber sheet, one MDF board, another rubber sheet, and then the Kallax shelving unit. After I screwed these layers together, I screwed another MDF board directly to the bottom of the Kallax. After all the pre-drilling, the assembly went very quickly and smoothly and was the most fun part of the build.
Previously, I used a loose MDF board on top of the old Kallax unit, but actually screwing the tabletop to the base makes a giant difference in how stable everything feels.
One compromise is that while the desktop is 60 cm deep, the Kallax unit is still only 39 cm deep, so some storage space is lost. On the other hand, I placed the Kallax closer to the front edge of the desktop, so anything in the open shelves can sort of overhang a bit at the back.
I also had these two MDF boards, which I had already used as shelves in the previous unit. My original plan was to install more shelves in the new units, so I ordered more MDF boards with the same dimensions from the hardware store, but whoever cut these at 8 a.m. apparently did not have their morning coffee yet, because they were 355 mm wide instead of 335 mm (and they had the wrong thickness), so they did not fit. Unfortunately, I only noticed much later, when I had built the rest and tried a test fit.
Anyway, that is why there are only the two boards that I already had. To make them a bit nicer and match the new color scheme (black), I also wrapped them with the deco foil.
Now for the horror: installing them. I had assumed that I had made the holes in the MDF boards symmetrical, but that was not the case (I think I had previously made the holes in the shelf first and then made the holes in the board to fit). I then tried to measure the pin locations, but I measured them incorrectly, so the shelf failed to fit.
For the second attempt, I inverted my clamps and used them to lift the shelf to the exact height I wanted it at. Then, I could mark the location of the holes without measuring anything. This worked great. I filled the wrong holes with filler and will cover them with some black paint. Thankfully, they are hidden by the installed shelves anyway.
And by the magic of doing everything twice, I now have two excellent workbenches:
Cost Breakdown
Here is an approximate cost breakdown for one unit:
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Desktop | 0 € |
| Kallax 2x2 | 40 € |
| Kallax Insert Drawers | 25 € |
| Kallax Insert Door | 15 € |
| MDF board large (2x) | 12 € |
| MDF board small (2x) | 5 € |
| Screws | 3 € |
| Deco Foil (2x) | 12 € |
| Rubber Sheet | 18 € |
| Total | 130 € |
This was definitely very budget-friendly, although I have not included any cost for the desktop, as I would have taken it for recycling if not for this project (I asked 80 € on eBay, and no one wanted to buy it).
Conclusion
I am super happy with how this project turned out. I noticed a small amount of lateral vibration or wobble if you push it around, so next time, I would think about how to reinforce this axis a bit. It is not an issue, however, and it does not happen when the unit is pushed against a wall. In every other way, it feels super solid thanks to the added weight. Especially screwing in the desktop gives it a completely different feeling compared to just a loose board sitting on top of a cabinet. I also tested the old unit, and a Kallax can hold my full body weight when I sit on top without a problem, even though IKEA does not rate it for this amount of weight.
Anyway, I think it turned out great and I am happy to see and use it every day in my office!