Upcycled desk and floating shelves

This desk was made using fence pickets and the original top and matches the industrial feel of a D.I.Y. loft bed.

The project

After building D.I.Y. loft beds using existing bed frames, I finished off this bedroom makeover by adding floating shelves and a desk using leftover fence pickets.

To give an industrial feel and match my daughter's black bed frame, I spray painted the aluminium ends of the desk black and used the top from her original desk. I added shelves and decorated them with positive and inspirational quotes. She absolutely loves her room and is able to have her own sanctuary for homework, reading and play time.

How to build a desk

Make your own desk with Experienced Workshop member Rob's step-by-step guide to building your own desk.

Popular desk projects

Creating a dedicated workspace or updating an existing one can be easy and affordable, and you'll have everything you need to be more productive when studying or working from home. For more ideas for your D.I.Y. desk build, check out our Top 10 most popular desk projects.

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Accepted answers

All comments

EricL

Hi @Tara86

What a beautiful desk project and those floating shelves just go so well with the table. Did you coat the bare timber with anything? What kind of brackets did you use for your floating shelves? Any tips or advice you can share for members wanting to duplicate this project would be much appreciated.

Eric

brendawebster44

Hi, I would love to know how to do floating shelves. I don’t think I will be doing it but I am still interested. The problem is I am only 4.11ft to 5 feet. I can’t reach the microwave when it’s in the correct space, so it is on the top of the fridge. Even so I still can’t reach properly and it is dangerous when some thing is red hot.My friend suggested a shelf in the corner and I said if it’s floating. One wall is concrete the other is just melamine I think. Any advice would be helpful, thankyou b🌺

MitchellMc

Hi @brendawebster44,

You can see more images illustrating how @Tara86 constructed these shelves in her discussion post: DIY Floating shelves, desk and loft bed.

There's a variety of ways you can construct floating shelves. For your microwave, the simplest would be to have a sheet of plywood cut to the same size as the base. Fix a couple of large angle brackets on the wall. You'll place them upside-down (as per the image below), so the microwave conceals the legs attached to the wall. You'll then have a floating shelf where you can't see the brackets. You can attach additional trim pieces around the edge of the plywood to improve aesthetics and give it that thick timber look.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell

KatieC

What a sweet desk and the shelves help everything in place, well done @Tara86 !

Old-gal24

@Tara86 Looks great, you've done it again... all your great work must give you a great sense of achievement ? And look at all the money your saving...

Great work Tara

This old gal

Tara86

Thank you so much for the lovely comments. The desk ended up being such a blessing during remote learning. The timber panel was the perfect size so daughter was able to have her school laptop and iPad set up without any issues. I actually ended up building my own desk without the storage cube when we were moved to work from home. As I am still working from home it’s definately been a lifesaver. We are so thankful for Bunnings selling these, they saved us during Covid lockdown!!

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