When something you want is not available for purchase, well, you can always build it yourself! I recently moved and have a dedicated office room now. I wanted something which combines the practicality of a workbench with the look of regular living room furniture.

After researching products, I found that workbenches or industrial shelving units have too much of a garage look and would never get girlfriend approval. Regular cabinets were only available with a maximum depth of 40 cm, which is a bit too small for my taste. I also looked into custom-made furniture, which landed slightly outside my budget at roughly 1 000 € per unit (I want two units).

Lacking any readily available solution, I decided to build it myself based on IKEA Kallax shelving units. For materials, I got two Kallax 2x2 shelving units plus inserts with drawers and doors from IKEA, MDF boards cut to size and screws from the hardware store, and decorative foil and rubber mats from Amazon. The basic 2x2 Kallax is only 40 € in black. After my recent move, I was really impressed with IKEA. They have really good options in the low and medium price ranges, their products are generally immediately available for pickup, and they have a very functional website.

First, we used my dad's mini circular saw, which did not work that well, so we finished the first cut by hand with a Japanese saw. Exhausted, my dad searched for and found a new (apparently sharper) blade for the mini circular saw, which worked a lot better. One thing to keep in mind is that IKEA panels are generally not solid, so if you want to drill into them, you cannot put as much load on any screws as with, say, a piece of plywood.