Hello,

Beginner here. With writing this, I’m increasingly thinking I should hire a carpenter, lol. But I’ve been wanting to post this for months, so here it goes.

What do I want to build?

I want to build a desk/TV sideboard/shelf combo, that takes up the entire length of a 5-meter-long wall in my living room (see image).

  • There’s the ‘lower part’: 60cm deep, 75cm high; two desks on either extremities (i.e. in the corners of the room), flanked by drawers and storage options for all matter of things. The centrepiece is the TV-sideboard, with cupboards for storage and an open solution for A/V devices.
  • Then there’s the ‘upper part’: 40cm deep, 200cm high; this is like a shelf that sits on top of the ‘lower part’, but it is narrower by 20cm. This will be storage for books, records, work stuff, etc… I am not planning on having a back wall on the shelf.

What are the circumstances?

I live in a relatively small apartment (~ 40m²) with my partner. The apartment is a pre-WW1 house, with a room height of 3,2m. The 5m wall is brick, and behind it starts the next house, so it’s plenty thick. The living room itself is about 19m².

My questions to the community

My main question is basically how?

  • Is it smarter to build the ‘lower part’ all in one first, then build the ‘upper part’ on top? Or is it better to build everything around the two L-shaped studs, that separate the desks from the TV? I imagine that the first option is easier to build, whereas the second option provides more stability.
  • What tools, screws, wall plugs and techniques would you use to build this? More specifically: how do I anchor things to the wall?
  • The material should be wood – but which one would be appropriate?
  • I have a couple of other questions, but I’ll leave it at that for now…

Thank you so much for replying and taking an interest.

  • Beegzoidberg@beehaw.org
    2·
    20 hours ago

    Hi, take it or leave it because I’m not very knowledgeable but I did do something like this with my partner. We used a shelf mounting system like this: https://a.co/d/60pkQw2 although I am not sure which exact one we used. I can look if you’re interested.

    We determined the location of the support beams, which mapped where we placed the vertical shelf supports. Drilling those into drywall anchors is not an option. Then, we determined the shelf lengths we’d need to fit the space we tried to fill. They sell numerous shelf lengths, so it was a puzzle of where we could support it, how long we wanted it, etc. We have a tv stand below the shelving for our entertainment center stuff and our TV. I’m happy to share more if it helps.

    None of this works if you really want to build the whole thing. But, it is easier than doing so and relates to what other commenter have said, this one travels a bit easier because you can use any parts that do fit your next place (which I know isn’t important right now).