As a family of four living in 1200 square feet, we have no room for a dedicated office. Until March 2020, there hadn’t been much need for an office since my wife and I both worked in NYC and we were only at our “weekend house” on – well – weekends. Somehow we had made do during COVID with both of us working from home in Connecticut. I often used our little guest cottage and Anne would work from either the kitchen table or a tiny little entry way table that we had repurposed as a desk and put in our little “annex” off the master bedroom. But once it became clear that we would say farewell to the Brooklyn apartment and make the weekend house or only house, a more permanent solution was needed.
The annex cum office off the master bedroom punches above its weight class. Only 6′ x 8′, it is perched in the glory of a large sugar maple’s branches through the window to the east while a large Southern window invites leisurely winter afternoons curled up with a book on a little built-in day bed I created some time back. If the room were just a tad bigger it would be the logical place for the bed, but it is just too narrow to fit a queen comfortably. So, we’ve made the most of one of the best rooms in the house and wanted to make it a more functional place to do the kind of work that pays bills, namely punching away at a keyboard and speaking pleasantries and the occasional sage advice into one of several different means of transmitting audio across the vast expanse of geography that is our virtual world. Although I’ve been known to write thousands of lines of computer code while lying prone on a bed with a laptop, my wife, fortunately, has more disciplined work habits. She asked for a proper desk to replace the entryway table she had been using as one, and I was happy to oblige.
My goal was to design a desktop that would accommodate a Macbook and some peripherals, papers, a lamp, etc but otherwise blend in seamlessly with the room. The logical choice, I thought, was to essentially “extend” the window stool (not “sash” – that is essentially the same thing but on the exterior) so that it could function as a desktop.
This was a pretty simple project. I started by removing the apron and stool from the existing window. With the window framing exposed, I took the opportunity to spray foam the wall cavity, which had no insulation. Then I set about making the desktop.
I used two pieces of plywood laminated together. I had a piece of 1/2″ baltic birch, which would be the top, and then I fastened it to a piece of 3/4″ sheathing to give the desktop some heft and rigidity. I rough cut each of these.
I used wood glue with some fasteners screwed from the bottom into the top piece of baltic birch.
I wanted a radius in the corner since this was going into a pretty tiny room and the edge of the desk would be quite close to the day bed and the storage cubbies underneath it, so I didn’t want a hard corner for someone to accidentally bump their head on. I wasn’t too concerned with the geometry of the radius so I just used a small bucket and moved it around until it looked good and then traced the line. I then used my jigsaw to cut the corner.
After sanding the exposed plywood edge, I applied some edge banding, then sanded the whole top and installed it in the window.
The desk gets some support from the window apron, but its main structural support is the pipe, which is connected to a stud in the wall and the underside of the desktop by Kee Klamp swivel flanges, which I got from Simplified Building for another built-in desk I made at our former apartment in Brooklyn and repurposed for this project. These are pretty neat and make for a super solid, yet low profile and easy installation. I actually thought I would need to use two legs, but the desk is completely sturdy with just the one leg and the window apron holding it up.
I painted with Sherwin Williams Pro Enamel to match the window trim and that was that. A desk built into a window.
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