Homework Station: Building the Desk
Step-by-step instructions to build homework station; What we used and why; Links to the material we used; Pictures to guide you through the process; Part 2 of a 3 part series.
As you may remember from Part 1 from this series, kids always seem to bring their toys in the living room or homework to the dinning room table. For that reason, we decided to build a “counter/homework” station in our kiddo’s playroom.
If you are looking for step-by-step instructions to build your own homework station in your home, I’ve got you covered. I’ve included details about our process, what we’ve used, links to the materials we’ve chosen to use and pictures to help you better understand.
Three-Part Series on Homework Station
- Part 1: Planning and Prepping the Space
- Part 2: Building the Desk
- Part 3: Links from the Completed Space
Building
I started by building the two 3-drawer Ikea Rast dressers that I had ordered. These ones are unfinished pine dressers so they can be painted or stained however you like. They also happen to be the perfect height to build a desk.
These pieces were fairly easy to assemble and took me about 30 minutes each to build. I’d like to point out that this (assembling of furniture) is usually why some pieces are less expensive than others and is also why Ikea is usually so affordable. If you are willing to put in the work, you will save some money.
Prepping and Painting
Once assembled, I put a few coats of BIN2 where there were wood knots. Since I knew that I wanted these dressers to be white, I didn’t want to see wood knots bleed through the paint so I made sure to take this extra step. This stuff is strong so make sure to read the instructions before using it and apply this product in a well ventilated area.
Once that was done, it was now onto the next step: applying the primer on all the pieces of the dressers. As you can see, I only treated and primed the facades of the dresser drawers and the outside pieces of the dresser frames. I didn’t feel the need to do it on all the surfaces since I wasn’t planning on painting it all.
I used a paint brush for the harder to reach areas like corners and harder to reach areas and used a roller for the flat surfaces. The roller really gives it a much cleaner and smoother finish on those flat surfaces so I suggest starting each coat with the paint brush and finishing it off with the roller if possible.
I also primed the desk top frame that my husband had made. I know that it won’t be visible underneath the desk’s wooden top but I still wanted it to look nice and finished for when and if we ever have to bend down under the desk and see underneath.
After the primer, it was onto the painting. You can’t see much of a difference in the pictures here since the primer and paint are both white but priming helps you not to waste all of your paint, especially on on product as absorbent as unfinished wood.
While I had the primer and paint out, I also did a few coats on the trims hubby had made for the front parts of the desk’s top frame.
While all the white paint was drying, I painted the dresser knobs with some of the SW Tricorn Black paint I had left from my Open Concept Closet project. Once they were dry, I applied a few coats of Minwax Polycrylic Finish to seal them.
Assembly Time!
Now that everything from the base is complete, it was time to assemble it all and make sure it all fit as it should. We brought everything from the basement into the playroom to lay it out and fix anything if it didn’t fit.
The structure (dressers) and frame (for the top) fit very well. We could move on and fix those in their positions. The way we chose to assemble this was to “permanently” fix the frame to the wall and have the dressers underneath as “supports”. The dressers and the frame are not attached to one another; the dressers act as supports and can be slid in and out if we ever needed them to.
To fix the frame to the wall, we started by finding the studs in the walls and then drilled screws through the frame and into each stud. Once that was complete, we moved on to the top of the desk.
We dry-fitted the planks of wood on top to find the best fit possible. We had to play around with it a little to make sure that none of the seams lined up vertically (that’s the look I was going for). Once we found the perfect puzzle fit, we moved each plank on the floor and turned them backwards to screw them together.
To make things easier for us, we traced straight lines perpendicularly as a guide. We were then able to use those lines as guides to make our screw holes using a pocket hole jig.
Once our holes were all completed, we glued each plank one by one, screwed it and held it together with a wood clamp. As we went on, we kept adding to the width of our piece until we had completed and obtained the width of the desk.
Now, it was time to sand and stain this large 14-foot slab. Yes, you read that right. Fourteen foot! lol I sanded it down with a hand sander then cleaned it off to apply the stain.
If you’ve read some of my blog posts before you know that my stain of choice, mainly for the colour, is from the brand Sikkens in the colour Dark Oak. We just love the colour and use it any chance we get. It is oil based so it’s very important to use it in a well ventilated area. I also love to use my Ikea Utility Cart when I’m staining or painting. I can drag it around with me without having to hog and carry everything. It’s very practical. One coat of stain and a few coats of Minwax Polycrylic Finish to seal the surface and we are good to go.
Final touches
We brought in the homework station top and nailed it to the frame with a nail gun. This could have been done with screws but we didn’t want to have to fill in the holes that screws would have made so that’s why we opted for nails.
With a 14-foot homework station taking up the whole wall in this space, I knew that I had to think long term. For that reason, I planned on accommodating for electronics to be easily accessible. Whether it be a lamp, a tablet charger, a laptop cord, etc.. I wanted a clean and easy access. For that reason, I ordered Desk Hole Covers on Amazon that hubby installed. For the time being we only installed two for lamps but we can easily install more in the future.
Now, it was time to apply that finishing trim in front to hide the frame. Again, we chose to attach it with finishing nails and a nail gun. It was our preference but it could have been done with screws, glue, etc.
Tada! This was such a fun project! Kiddo spends a lot of his time in there drawing and coloring and that makes us so happy. On top of that, the space is not age specific, so it will grow with all of us and accommodate our family and our lifestyle which is what we were aiming for. I really hope that this has inspired you to plan and consider a project of this type for your home.
