By Tom Messina
I was a college senior when the pandemic closed the world down in 2020, but by then I already knew I would be spending a lot of time at a desk, probably at home. The future of office-based work looked doubtful. The problem was that finding a piece of furniture to suit my needs and budget was impossible. So I took matters into my own hands.
In my sketchbook, I designed a piece of furniture using Ikea components and lumber. I took its inspiration from mid-century modern credenzas, but under the hood I wanted it to have all the high-tech considerations necessary for the work I do as a digital designer. And it was equally important to me that the desk had to be a nice piece of furniture, something worth sitting at each day. I'm not a woodworker, so it needed to be simple to build and affordable.
Maybe those goals were contradictory, but I built a prototype of the desk I designed and used it daily for the last three years. But there were aspects of it that I knew I could improve. The original desk used oak flooring as the worktop. I wanted a smoother and more consistent surface, and I wanted a better arrangement of its storage space. I went back to the sketchbook and collaborated with colleague Roy Berendsohn in bringing Popular Mechanics an updated Version 2.0 of the Ikea desk hack. |
By Tom Messina
I was a college senior when the pandemic closed the world down in 2020, but by then I already knew I would be spending a lot of time at a desk, probably at home. The future of office-based work looked doubtful. The problem was that finding a piece of furniture to suit my needs and budget was impossible. So I took matters into my own hands.
In my sketchbook, I designed a piece of furniture using Ikea components and lumber. I took its inspiration from mid-century modern credenzas, but under the hood I wanted it to have all the high-tech considerations necessary for the work I do as a digital designer. And it was equally important to me that the desk had to be a nice piece of furniture, something worth sitting at each day. I'm not a woodworker, so it needed to be simple to build and affordable.
Maybe those goals were contradictory, but I built a prototype of the desk I designed and used it daily for the last three years. But there were aspects of it that I knew I could improve. The original desk used oak flooring as the worktop. I wanted a smoother and more consistent surface, and I wanted a better arrangement of its storage space. I went back to the sketchbook and collaborated with colleague Roy Berendsohn in bringing Popular Mechanics an updated Version 2.0 of the Ikea desk hack. |
