We Built Our Son an Industrial Style Desk - Check Out How We Did It.

Our son, Mike was going away to school and would be taking audio engineering, one afternoon while visiting him at his apartment he was showing me some of the very cool audio stuff he'd be learning, (as technical as I get) and I noticed that the desk he was using was sagging, jam packed and just plain sad looking! This is where the idea was born... I've been dying to try my hand at an industrial build, this is what we came up with, hope you like it!
We decided to use two pieces of VIKA FURUSKOG (Ikea) – pine table tops as the desk tops, perfect size and easily finished.
This build used every tool we had on hand, our welder, steel cut saw... you name it, lots of hours and tons of love went into making this gift for our son.
We used cardboard templates to test the scale and make sure the legs weren't too massive... this was the best way to template the shelves and the tops of the desks.
This is the frame we built with industrial steel pipe and plumbing connectors, the main design criteria was for our son to be able to stand while he produced with shelving for his speakers and computer, he is over 6' tall, so this had to be tall and sturdy.
Our very in-depth distressing kit…basically we beat the daylights out of the top of your piece, we burned some parts and added black paint, we wanted industrial looking, so we went to town… once that was done we applied stain to the tops (2 coats) with Minwax special walnut, let that dry, then we finished it with Minwax Wipe-on Poly in a satin finish.
The smaller of the two desks was designed to have a portion of the top tilt for the piece of equipment that sits here, it turned out perfectly.
I had fun styling the desks for the final reveal to Mike.
These desks will last Mike a very long time, I have to be honest though I seriously thought about keeping them, we all just love the way they turned out.
Laurie @ Vinyet Etc
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Sharon Hall Sharon Hall on Sep 12, 2014
    Love the look of the desk! I'm gonna use the look for my kitchen cabinets(lowers and uppers) I think it will look GREAT!!
  • Donna Donna on Jan 18, 2021

    I bet this was one of the best gifts you’ve ever given your son. ♥️ It has probably helped save him from years of neck pain. I love this! Thank you for sharing!!

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