One of the first questions we had when planning to add a home office to our guest bedroom was simple: where should the desks go? Correction: where should the two desks go? The room is modest — only 10′ x 10.5′ — and it also needs to hold a new sofa that folds out into a full bed for guests. A little pre-planning helped us sort the options. Here’s a simple, not-to-scale floor plan we used to weigh desk placement:
- Zone #1 sounded appealing because the person seated there would get a view of the backyard through the window. But the couch sits close to that wall, so the other person could end up feeling cramped. We also planned to add a bookcase on that wall to balance the off-center window, so Zone #1 became less attractive.
- Zone #2 was promising because it’s the longest uninterrupted wall. The downside: we’d need a custom-sized desk to fit the length while leaving enough space for the sofa bed to fold out.
- Zone #3 had room for just one desk. Putting one person there and the other in Zone #1 or #2 would reduce the need for one long desk, but it would mean sitting back-to-back instead of side-by-side, which makes collaborating harder.
In the end we chose Zone #2. It made the most sense because of the available length and because we liked having a blank wall ahead of us to hang art, pinboards, or other productivity-focused decor.
With the placement decided, the next step was finding a desk that fit the space. We had about 7 feet between the window and the open door and only 21 inches of depth available before the sofa bed would interfere. After hunting online and in thrift stores we found two plausible options: an IKEA Besta Burs and a desk similar to Crate & Barrel’s Sloane Leaning Bookcase Desk with two work areas. Neither quite fit our needs.
The IKEA piece was 5’10” long and only 15″ deep — too small for the space we wanted to maximize — and it was priced at $249. The Crate & Barrel option was pricier and didn’t offer two distinct work areas, plus it would add more bookcase presence to a room where we were already planning one. So, feeling inspired by past DIY experience, I decided to build a custom desk.
Transporting large slabs of wood is tricky when your car is a Nissan Altima, but we had a different option at hand: a hollow-core door that had been living in our garage. It was nearly the perfect size for our wall — just under 7 feet long and about 18 inches wide — and it was free, which made it an ideal desktop candidate.
Rather than following detailed woodworking plans, I used the construction of our dining table as a model for legs and rails. After measuring, we picked up materials at Home Depot: several 1×3 poplar planks for the rails and four chunky 3×3 poplar pieces to cut down into legs. Total cost was about $70 — a fraction of the retail desk prices we had been considering.
First, I removed the door hardware and filled hinge indentations with wood putty, keeping the handle hole intact so it could serve as a convenient cord pass-through at the back of the desk. The door needed cleaning and sanding after two years in the garage, so I scrubbed it with a vinegar solution and sanded away peeling paint before priming.
I trimmed a few inches off the door so it wouldn’t feel too tight in the space, using painter’s tape to reduce splintering and a circular saw to make a clean cut. The hollow-core interior was exposed on the trimmed end, which I sanded smooth since it would face the wall.
Before assembly I primed all of the wood parts so they could withstand some handling without showing every ding. Then the fun began: using a Kreg Jig I drilled pocket holes in the legs and rails, clamped each piece in place, and screwed everything to the door. I set the legs in from the edge instead of flush, using leftover furring strips and 1×3 scraps as guides to ensure consistent placement.
Once the rails were measured, cut, and attached with pocket screws, I touched up spots with wood filler, reprimed where needed, and finished the entire desk with paint and polyurethane for durability. The final piece fits the space perfectly, provides ample surface for two laptops, and still allows the sofa bed to fully open.
The desk ended up being 18 inches deep — shallow enough to allow the sofa bed to extend, but deep enough to comfortably hold two laptops and everyday supplies. Cost: roughly $70 in new materials, since we already owned the door and basic supplies. The satisfaction of building it ourselves was the best part.
Now we’re outfitting the space with chairs, storage, electronics, and wall decor to make it a functioning workspace for both of us. We’re taking the slow-and-steady route while adjusting to life with a newborn, but the door-turned-desk has already logged several productive days. If you’ve found clever desk solutions or creative ways to fit workspaces into small rooms, we’d love to hear about them — share any ideas that might help others planning their home offices.