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.