Hi all!
A friend of mine recently gifted me an old IKEA desk, which sadly had a damaged top on it. So, in light of this Mum (@hazesnow) and I decided to take the initiative and replace the top with a brand new one instead of letting this desk go to waste.
The desk itself is an IKEA MALM desk, in Black-Brown. The drawers and the side panel are good, but the top had a huge dent in it. (Fun fact, IKEA makes the tops of these desks in a factory that produces hollow core doors, hence why the dent's such a big issue here...)
IKEA furniture uses these rotary locking devices which are designed to make the furniture easy to assemble and to make it easy to move into apartments (hence why mum made that kitchen island for me in a way that was collapsible), the difference here is that since we're just replacing the top, we just needed to replicate the size of the desk top, and locate the holes so that they'll work with the stock locking devices. After all, since the top's pretty much busted, it makes no sense to let it go to waste! It was a neat little drilling rig.
We used one of Arauco's 2100x900mm finger jointed pine panels to replicate the butcher's block style panels we used for the kitchen island without the fuss of worrying about jointing and thicknessing the wood. Taking measurements using the existing top panel, Mum trimmed it down to 1400x650mm, and using a 4mm and 8mm drill bit, drilled through the old desk top's holes and into the new one.
The original desk's top is about 65mm thick, so this is going to be a thinner desk top (at 30mm), but it's made from a much more solid material, so it should stand the test of time.
Unfortunately, due to some blade chatter with the track saw, the end of the drawer-side cut ended up with some rather unfortunate burring as seen in this photo. However, I've since filled this in to slightly above the material thickness, and I'll then end up using a power sander to get this sanded down. Luckily, this edge will be up against the wall, so it's not much of a big deal.
The intent is to finish this benchtop in a similar way to the kitchen island, and to the upcoming lift-top coffee table we're planning on building together. These light wood accents will be a big part of the design of the new place.
I'll post more as we make progress!
