Office Party of Two

Materials: Vika Veine, Vika Amon, Vika Kaj, Aspvik Cabinet

Description: My wife and I both work from home, so we needed a solution that addressed a few needs...

1. Desk big enough for both of us to work on. More room to write notes, look through papers, etc.

2. Some way to hide all the clutter. Working for a tech company and being gadget geeks, we had a lot of equipment that needed to be organized.

3. Provide some personal space for each of us. Because if I sat side-by-side with my wife for 8+ hours a day, she'd probably kill me.

We brainstormed, went to IKEA, and came up with a solution that would fit all our needs using a mix of cabinets, desks, and some good ol' hackery.

Shopping List

1. Vika Viene Table Top (for my wife, a cool desk that opens and closes so all the work clutter is out of sight when not in use.)

2. Vika Amon Table tops (long one for my side of the desk + a shorter one for Christy's side - which we had to cut to size so that both our sides matched up in length.)

3. Vika Kaj Adjustable Legs (8)

4. Aspvik Cabinet with sliding doors (to house all the electronics)

The Aspvik cabinet was assembled straight-forwardly and would serve as the base for our Tabletops.

For the tabletops we wanted to pair a Vika Veine desk with a small Vika Amon tabletop on one side (Christy's) and a larger Vika Amon tabletop on the other (mine).

We cut the small Vika Amon tabletop to size on one end using a power saw (a literal hack). The Vika Amon tabletop is hollow on the inside, so we faced the hollow side toward the wall so you don't notice.

We then put on the legs, and adjusted them so that all the tabletops were the same height. The adjustable legs are a necessity, because the Vika Veine desk has a taller width (to accommodate the fold-up feature).

After getting to that stage, we realized we had to come up with a cable management solution (IKEA never considers this it seems). We didn't just want them going over the top of the desks.

So Christy came up with the genius idea of raising the height of the desks a bit and putting in place hacked risers. Each riser was made by taking 4 felt pads, and two rubber desk feet we picked up at our local hardware store. We then sandwiched them together, felt in the middle, rubber feet on the ends (all OREO resemblances are purely coincidental).

We put the risers on opposite ends of the desk where the Vika tabletops rest on the Aspvik cabinet. The effect is a cool "floating" desk that allows our cables to run under the table instead of over it!

We then put all the electronics in the Aspvik cabinet and cut a couple holes out back for routing the wires and to serve as ventilation for the computer (we also got a small USB fan to help push out the hot air from inside the cabinet).

The end result is just what we wanted, a clean, neat, organized office for two (and a cat).

See more of the home office remodel.

~ Chris, Austin, TX