An easy tweak made this desk set-up more affordable

In setting up my home office, I found table legs with a drawer unit to be expensive.

So I made it much cheaper with an affordable MICKE drawer unit.

The original MICKE drawer unit comes with caster wheels and stands at 75 cm. Because of its height, IKEA usually sets it next to a MICKE desk to extend the work area. Like so:

Photo: IKEA.com

IKEA items used: 

MICKE drawer unit
LINNMON table top
BILLY bookcase x 2
MALM chest of 3 drawers
ADILS leg
SANDSHULT bracket

Other materials and tools: 

HETTICH metal legs x 6 (similar on Amazon)
Melamine boards

Tools:

Dexter Cordless Screwdriver
Some other basic tools

Assembling the desk with MICKE drawer: 

1. First, I assembled the MICKE drawer unit but I omitted the wheels.

Where the wheels should be, I hammered in metal legs to lift the drawer unit to 70cm. That’s the right height to match the 70cm ADILS legs on the other side of the desk.

(Could you just leave the drawer unit on the ground without the wheels? You could but you’ll need to get a height adjustable leg for a slightly lower desk. For ergonomics, 70cm is ideal desk height.)

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2. Then, using double-sided tape I fixed the LINNMON table top above the MICKE drawer unit.

I installed a pair of ADILS legs on the right side of the desk.

The rest of the home office

3. Next, I assemble the two narrow BILLY bookshelves and MALM 3-drawer chest.

4. Finally, fixed the

SANDSHULT brackets to the wall and placed melamine boards on top of them. They worked beautifully as open shelving.

What’s the cost?

The cost is around:
MICKE units: €50
LINNMON table top: €29
BILLY bookshelves €40
MALM €80
SANDSHULT brackets €45
ADILS legs €8 
and melamine boards €36

Grand total of €288.

~ by Alihan Dobada

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MICKE & BYSE BUILT IN DESK

IKEA item used: 

VIKA BYSE (discontinued, try the LAGKAPTEN instead)
GALANT Leg (discontinued, try the BOAXEL adjustable leg instead)
MICKE Drawer units

Assembling a two desk home office

We wanted a built-in desk for our 10×10 foot office.

We decided to buy two VIKA BYSE table tops and cut them down to size.

For the middle drawers we used the all white MICKE drawer unit and for the outside legs we bought the GALANT Legs.

There are a lot of great leg choices at IKEA but the GALANT legs are adjustable, and that was important to us so that it can be used for any drawer unit, no matter what the height.

We think it looks great!

~ by Maria Hilas-Louie, United States

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