How to Create your OWN built-in office

If you're wanting to know how you can create your own built in office - then you've come to the right place. I created this office with my own two hands with no built in experience. This was my first built in project - and I'm going to give you the run down of what I did, and what I'd do next time so you don't make my same mistakes!

Let's start with the office before:

CREATE A PLAN FOR YOUR SPACE

This probably sounds pretty obvious - but you need a plan going into this project to make sure it comes together! I started by measuring the length of my wall (a little under 12 feet) and knew I wanted 2 cabinets/drawer sets with a large desk space in the middle. Here is what a few of my drafts looked like. I created these in Adobe Illustrator - but you don't need that! You can easily use some graph paper/paper to plan it out as well. It's really helpful to figure out the cabinets you'll buy/how wide they are, and then how tall your shelves need to be based on those measurements.

You can use cabinets for the base of the shelves - but I decided to use 2 Ikea Hemnes Dressers so I didn't have to build my own. I assembled them like normal - but I cut the legs off the bottom and did not add the dresser top in my assembly. You can see that here:

Purchase all your materials and start putting it together!

I ran to the hardware store and purchased all the boards I needed for the shelving! Including framing it out!

The first thing I did is assemble the dressers as seen below. I wanted shiplap in between the shelves and so I put that up next!

After that I did assembled the desk top.

This desktop was my biggest mistake in this project. It was definitely a learning experience for me. I needed a 12'x24" desktop - and so I purchased some oak boards. I used 8'x12" oak boards and tried to pocket hole them together. My boards were not straight at all and so I ended up with some huge gaps. If I had to do it again - I would pay someone to build an oak desktop for me. I remedied it by covering the whole thing with oak veneer - but it didn't stain as beautifully as I some straight up oak boards. I may go back and redo it in the future - but it's fine for now.

Anyways - once that was assembled and stained I started building my shelves! I used 8'x12" pine for the sides/tops of the shelves. And I trimmed out the front of the shelves to bulk it up with some 8'x2" mdf!

Then it was time to paint! I used the color Shade Grown by Sherwin Williams!

And here is the final product:

I love it! Hope this helps you create your own beautiful space!

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