Work desk made out of 3 Expedit shelving units

Materials: 2 x Expedit 2x2 unit, 1 x Expedit 4x2 unit, 1 x Vika Amon 150x74cm tabletop

Description: Before this hack, my Ikea dining table was my work desk and littered with papers and stuff.

To start fresh in 2013, I decided to put a dedicated work desk in my home.

However I also needed enough storage space for my papers, printers and other stuff.

When I had a look at the desks with storage which Ikea sold, they were just not practical enough for me.


The Vika Amon tabletop which Ikea sells was 150cm wide and 74cm deep, perfect for what I needed!

As legs I have used the Expedit 2x2 units, however without the thick top shelf of them. Otherwise the table top surface would be to high, approx 82,5cm.

Without the thick top shelve it was only 77,5cm high in total. Perfect height for a desk.

The big problem with using the tabletop on the Expedit was that the units are 79cm deep and the desk only 74cm. So this would leave less then 1 cm on the back for the tabletop to rest on the Expedit vertical shelf. This was solved by mounting L brackets to support the tabletop (and painted the brackets black), and wooden pegs for the thin vertical shelf.

Please note that when you do remove the thick top shelf of the Expedit, paint the top surface black to not see the wood when you mount the table top to it (I did not do this yet when I took the photos).

To provide even more storage, an Expedit 4x2 unit was placed on the right side of the desk. And here also the bottom thick shelf was left out for a cleaner look.

To make place for my 2 printers, I have moved 2 vertical boards a bit and all was secured with wooden pegs

The unit is mounted with long brackets on the back (no L brackets used here), and drilled some holes for wooden pegs so that the sides of the unit cannot move.

All cables for the printers are fed through the hollow side walls of the large unit, as we all love invisible cables! Also a mountable power outlet was placed out of view.

It all looks very clean now, and almost as it is a standard package which you can buy.

(I still have to mount the doors on my Besta tv unit, please ignore those ;) )

~ Jeroen Zelle, Aalsmeer, The Netherlands