Workstation Desk

The Problem

After moving into my current residence, I bought a cheap desk that, admittedly, was way too small right from the start. As far as I can tell, the IKEA BRUSALI desk seems to be intended for children to do homework at, not to house a desktop computer. And seeing as my home office is in a basement that has seen it's share of water issues, I would rather my computer live as high up off the ground as possible... After making do for several years, a change in my work schedule has me working from home more often, which makes the "desk issue" even more pressing. It's time to do something. And if I'm going to do it, I want to do it right.

I had several ideas of what I wanted in a desk, but the two primary concerns were that it be large and sturdy. I briefly toyed with the idea of building a desk with a full 4x8' sheet of plywood, but that really would be quite excessive. So I set out searching for commercial options, scrolled through Craigslist, and ended up really falling in love with large industrial work tables. I could get them configured to order, with several choices of desktop material, and they were appropriately large and heavy duty. They also start at $600-800 for the most basic version. Eventually I found a used one for $200 but it was snatched up before I could even send an email to the seller.

Fine. I guess I'll build my own. Some napkin math says I should be able to do it for under $200, depending on how I choose to finish it. Shouldn't be too hard, right?