Workstation

Desktop wood is sepetir (from Woods Unlimited). They're 5/4 inch (nominal) planks that typically goes into delivery trucks as cargo bed flooring. Some good belt-sanding got them glass-smooth. All the other pieces are maple plywood (from MacBeath Hardwood) and solid maple (from Yardbirds in Martinez, CA, which, by the way, has excellent price and selection on maple as well as mahogany, oak and clear doug fir). Three or four planks made each top piece. The top pieces fasten with knockdown fittings. Each section is connected to the adjacent with either steel plates, aluminum sleeves, or they're just free-standing.

Those acrylic tubes supporting the peninsula section were specially ordered (at a cost, after delivery and tax, of $229). It's probably my biggest splurge for the room in terms of appearance for the buck. There were lesser and easier options for sure, but I had to keep the beautiful Macintosh G5 tower visible from all sides! The tower, by the way, is bottom supported with a Simpson HL76, cushioned with foam rubber on sepetir, then hooked on top with an acrylic L panel.

All this is mere furniture, I realize. It's not "home improvement" in the purist sense, but I have to mention it because the entire room's design is based on it. At this point, the office is 95% complete. I think everything came together very well.

I was also glad to have found Kensington's extended wrist pad. It's a nice 27.5 inches of smooth, straight, nylon-covered gel, so a keyboard and trackball can be placed side-by-side on it. There's no feeling of hindrance sliding left to right. It's totally seamless. In fact, I designed the keyboard pull-out just for this particular Kensington product.



Total cost
All the sepetir subtotaled $534. All the maple (solid and plywood) was $565. Connectors and metals another $385. The acoustic tackboard assembly was $202. As shown above, the completed workstation and wall shelving with miscellaneous hardware, supplies, finishes, xenon lighting, under-cabinet fluorescent and the wall panels totaled $2,130. It compares favorably to the $6k+ quotes I got from California Closets and places like Galvins, which would be just laminate material and very "stock" functionality.

Designing the shoji

The idea for shoji panels came about after looking at what the office room lacked — occasional visual privacy. And that was it! Noise control, security and durability were not influencing factors (surprisingly enough, after some thought). Lightweight shojis came to fit the bill perfectly.

With a future maildrop cabinet taking up the corner and a 6-foot opening to cover, there appeared a serendipitous 2-foot blank wall area that got the shoji design off and running.

Three 2-foot panels became a natural choice. They would stack neatly to cover the blank wall when fully open. When closed, they had to overlap slightly. 25" turned out to be the best width.



And of course, I wanted them thin. I wanted the total stack of panels as compact as possible. I simply picked out some stock 1x2 clear douglas fir. They measure only about 3/4" thick. They're cheap, too. Red cedar is actually a better choice for shoji frames, but I would need to rip cedar in two dimensions because I couldn't find them in 1x2 stock — I was lazy. 1/4" pine strips was then fastened, using a spring-loaded stapler, to sandwich the shoji paper.



Such compactness meant careful planning in creating the narrow floor rail. It had to be wood, and it had to serve as a threshold to transition from bamboo on one side to an unknown future floor on the other. I found stock bipass-door rollers (replacement hardware) to fit inside mortised pockets in each panel. They needed individual rails. Only after getting precise dimensions was I able to take a router to solid maple.



Lastly, the headrail had to be kept simple. This little project became more planning and design than fabrication. 1/8"-thick pressboard was slot-glued to match the spacing below. And since each panel goes in place by sliding up, then lifting onto a rail, there had to be a minimum depth and width. It had to be tall enough but not too tall, narrow enough but not too narrow. With proper planning, it was easier done than said. The dash line indicates the height of a panel radiused from the first bottom rail — a required dimension prior to cutting the very first piece for the shoji panels themselves.

Total costs of materials: $100 for the shoji paper, $50 for everything else.

Control side of new door

(continued from earlier)

Weighing a good 86 lbs, it was best to use three 4-inch hinges. I also kept the floor gap small -- about 1/4 inch. It'll help control sound between the rooms. The light switch is also new, added during framing.



Most expensive part was the Pella slimshades because I had to pay full retail for it as if I was purchasing replacement components. Conniving costs, I guess.

Custom door completed

(continued from earlier)

Such seamless appearance doesn't come about haphazardly.

Flush fit glazing

There were some special factors to consider while making the door.

The integral blinds assembly was purchased from Pella (with some conniving). It's their slimshades feature that I already have in the bow window nearby. I got them to sell me just the blinds and glazing panel. It's actually part of their exterior door product that's typically sold only as a prehung system with full weather-stripping, threshold and jambs. Trickiest cuts were the slots for the pivoting tabs that held it in place.

I also had to consider the available space between the first and fourth wall studs. I actually calculated backwards and got a 35-inch door that can still contain the Pella slimshades. It met wheelchair accessibility requirements, too, which is a nice bonus.

So this glazed door had to be finished before framing the opening!

A tempered beveled glass panel enclosed the other side. Both glazing panels are in fact tempered because of the proximity to the floor and window.

Custom door

(continued from earlier)



The type of door installed here becomes very important. It had to provide full control of privacy and view because the potential function of the separate rooms are so different. I needed a fully glazed door with integral blinds. It also had to be seamless, contemporary-looking and maintenance-free.

My search turned up nothing like it for sale.

I had to design and fabricate it.

New doorway

After careful consideration, I decided to open a doorway between the "living room" (now office/library/den) and bedroom #2. The floor plan here is such that having the access is ultimately better than not having it. My estimation is that it will improve circulation, function, comfort, accessibility and home value.



Structural restrictions were also absent. There was no load from above, no shear wall involved and no mounting substrate to be eliminated. It was a simple cutaway of a non-load-bearing interior partition.

Nonetheless, for good measure I built a double 2x6 header with sandwiched 1/2" plywood and further added a Simpson LSTI49 reaching across four studs. Existing sheetrock was used as patch for good texture match.

See completed door.

Wall speakers

I got a "designer's deal" from Cambridge Soundworks for their top-of-the-line in-wall speakers. Retailing at $200 a pair, I got these Ambiance 82's for $160. It fits perfectly in the gable wall created after raising the ceiling to the rafters. Speaker wires are routed to this room and to the family room.

Home office

As global headquarters for my burgeoning world-conquering business (yeah, sure), my home office had to be spectacular. While most any space in a typical house can be adapted to serve as a basic office, for me the criteria were proximity to an exterior door, relative privacy, space for occasional sitting clients and an efficient computer layout (criteria which are actually quite universal for any viable home-based, computer-dependent business).



The original living room was perfect for a makeover. It's right off the front door. It's an otherwise static 12 by 16 foot box that gets little use. The new bow window improved it dramatically. Gleaming morning sun, though controlled by the Pella slimshades, meant the computer displays had to face perpendicular. It was the only absolute. Besides that, the entire room design was a balance of flexibility, feasibility and fantastic features.

My needs also included a side layout (conference) table, lots of deep desktops (for large drawing sheets) and plenty of bookshelves. Mindful of the potential for a change in room function, I designed semi-modular components. They would simply be furniture pieces. In fact, I scaled back my original plans and went with simple same-height work surfaces all around (instead of lowering the printer table, for example). The built-in wall shelves can hopefully serve as general storage at some point in the future when I'm gone.

Next, raising the flat ceiling to a nice volume.

Bow window, part 4

(Continued from part 3.)

Day of total completion for the bow window... All glazing surfaces have been applied with Rain-X, which is an excellent surface treatment for all glass surfaces. The interior pine surfaces got a light sanding, a coat of wood primer, then two coats of latex enamel semi-gloss paint.
Pella has a nice fold-away crank feature and a convenient low-position locking lever that operates both latches simultaneously. The bugscreen has an extension knob that aligns with the slimshade adjustment knob. These are essentially triple-glazed units with the extra glazing panel over the slimshades. The fixed sashes have a U-factor of 0.27 (the lower the better) while the casement sashes are 0.30 — truly amazing performance. It's quite noticeable, too, like when standing at the window on a cold windy day or when a noisy vehicle drives by. This is truly a high-performance window.