Author Topic: Office Remodel  (Read 24032 times)

lthenderson

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Office Remodel
« on: January 14, 2016, 08:07:44 AM »
I am remodeling the room in my house that I use for an office. The plan was to make it a better looking office plus include a Murphy Bed so that it could also be used as a spare bedroom. I decided to ditch the desk that I've been using since college and go for a built in office desk and cabinets. I went to the local big box hardware store but the cabinets there looked terribly cheap and didn't come in the sizes I needed. So I went to the mom and pop cabinet store and they quoted me $3800 for six cabinets in the sizes I needed, no delivery or installation included! The Murphy Bed was going to cost me another $2400! So I ended up buying about $600 worth of lumber and am going the DIY route. I just built and installed the upper cabinets and am working on the lower cabinets and desk surface now. It is my first time to build cabinets and I thought it might be more difficult but it has actually been fairly easy thus far and didn't require much in the way of tools. In fact, all I've used so far is a skilsaw, a couple cordless drills, a pocket screw jig and a handful of clamps.

pbkmaine

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #1 on: January 14, 2016, 08:19:55 AM »
Looks good! Keep posting as you do more!

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #2 on: January 14, 2016, 04:22:57 PM »
I was able to add the under cabinet lighting on the upper cabinets today and make all the lower cabinet carcasses.

asiljoy

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #3 on: January 14, 2016, 06:18:59 PM »
Nice! I love all the light.

Mrs. PoP

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2016, 07:17:58 PM »
Nice.  I've been building all the cabinetry for our kitchen renovation and have quite enjoyed it.  We also pondered the idea of a Murphy Bed for the guest room/my office, but so far we're leaning toward getting a sofa with a pull out bed instead.  Have you picked the hardware you'll use for the Murphy Bed yet?  What's it going to cost?

With This Herring

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2016, 09:24:18 AM »
As you are going to use the room as a guest room as well, you might want to set up your office cabinets to be locking.  I'm not saying that your guests will necessarily be nosy, but it can't hurt to take precautions.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2016, 09:50:36 AM »
Nice! I love all the light.

This is a basement room with 7-1/2" ceiling that had three 8 inch can lights. I could feel the heat on my head everytime I walked underneath one and they didn't adequately light the room. I have since replaced those with 9 -  4" can lights using LED bulbs and the undercabinet lighting. Much much better!

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2016, 09:52:57 AM »
Nice.  I've been building all the cabinetry for our kitchen renovation and have quite enjoyed it.  We also pondered the idea of a Murphy Bed for the guest room/my office, but so far we're leaning toward getting a sofa with a pull out bed instead.  Have you picked the hardware you'll use for the Murphy Bed yet?  What's it going to cost?

Since this is mostly an office 364 days of the year and small sized room for a bedroom, we opted the Murphy bed route over the pullout sofa. But I did consider it for awhile. I bought my Murphy bed hardware from Rockler.com and I think it was $299. I've already got the wood for the project but haven't yet started. I'll post some pictures of that on here when I get to it.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2016, 07:04:09 AM by lthenderson »

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2016, 09:54:20 AM »
As you are going to use the room as a guest room as well, you might want to set up your office cabinets to be locking.  I'm not saying that your guests will necessarily be nosy, but it can't hurt to take precautions.

It will be a quest room as well. Most of the cabinets won't have anything of value in them but when I get the lower filing cabinets built, I am looking at getting a lock for them.

andy85

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2016, 10:08:47 AM »
Nice.  I've been building all the cabinetry for our kitchen renovation and have quite enjoyed it.  We also pondered the idea of a Murphy Bed for the guest room/my office, but so far we're leaning toward getting a sofa with a pull out bed instead.  Have you picked the hardware you'll use for the Murphy Bed yet?  What's it going to cost?

Since this is mostly an office 364 days of the year and small sized room for a bedroom, we opted the Murphy bed route over the pullout sofa. But I did consider it for awhile. I bought my Murphy bed hardware from Rocker.com and I think it was $299. I've already got the wood for the project but haven't yet started. I'll post some pictures of that on here when I get to it.

I believe he meant rockler.com

Looks great OP! I'll probably end up doing a murphy bed in a guest room as well. The only cabinets i see myself building right now are for garage purposes only.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #10 on: January 16, 2016, 07:06:46 AM »
I believe he meant rockler.com

Looks great OP! I'll probably end up doing a murphy bed in a guest room as well. The only cabinets i see myself building right now are for garage purposes only.

Thanks for pointing that out. I did go back and edit that to say Rockler. I went the quick route with my garage and bought cheapo ones from a big box store. I've regretted it ever since. They just don't hold up well and they don't really look good in a home office situation anyway. I'm fortunate now that I have the time to do such projects which I find very rewarding as well as saving me money.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #11 on: January 16, 2016, 09:20:23 AM »
I got the lower cabinets built and installed with a face frame. The inner two cabinets are going to be filing cabinets (his and hers) and the outer two cabinets are going to have pullout drawers for more storage. My next step it to cut the desk top out of plywood and then stain the whole works. Once that is done, I plan to start using that desk while I build the Murphy bed and other associated bedroom paraphernalia for guests and then return to build the doors and drawers.

pbkmaine

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Office Remodel
« Reply #12 on: January 16, 2016, 09:25:28 AM »
Looks really solid. Are you putting flooring in later?

Mrs. PoP

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2016, 10:58:15 AM »
The Rockler Murphy bed hardware was what I had looked at in the past.  You'll definitely have to update on how the install goes and whether you feel it's high quality stuff since it's not cheap! 

I can't tell from the pictures - Are you finishing the cabinet interiors before you mount them, or are you planning on finishing them later?  What kind of finish are you planning on using for everything?

Zaga

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2016, 11:18:58 AM »
I love what you've done so far!

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #15 on: January 17, 2016, 06:50:25 AM »
Looks really solid. Are you putting flooring in later?

Yes. We're going with carpet tile.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #16 on: January 17, 2016, 06:53:20 AM »
The Rockler Murphy bed hardware was what I had looked at in the past.  You'll definitely have to update on how the install goes and whether you feel it's high quality stuff since it's not cheap! 

I can't tell from the pictures - Are you finishing the cabinet interiors before you mount them, or are you planning on finishing them later?  What kind of finish are you planning on using for everything?

I presanded all the interiors before assembly. I don't really want to finish the interiors but my wife think she does so I think the first go will be to finish the outside and see how things look before doing the interiors if at all. We are going to stain them. Since I will probably get the desk top in place early next week, I hope to have the finishing done next week too.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #17 on: January 17, 2016, 06:53:38 AM »
I love what you've done so far!

Thank you.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #18 on: January 24, 2016, 04:03:40 PM »
Well the custom office cabinets are all in place, sanded and stained. I'm going to hold off on the drawers and doors for now because it is functional as it is and I need to get started on the Murphy bed part of it.

I bought the components from Rockler.com and they are very good quality. The DVD that they send along with it really helps the process of making all the wooden parts. I started making the parts yesterday and will get a picture up when I get them fastened together.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #19 on: January 28, 2016, 03:20:49 PM »
I've got a good start on the Murphy bed. The first picture below is of the top side of the part that will hold the mattress and fold up vertically into a cabinet still to be build. I have to put a piece of 1/4" plywood in to support the mattress but other than that, it is finished. The second picture was taken after I stained the opposite side. I still have a couple coats of polyurethane to go and then to install the hardware on the outside of the frame. The cabinet isn't very hard to build so it shouldn't take as long as it took for me to get this part built.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #20 on: February 01, 2016, 12:09:21 PM »
Got the new flooring installed. I initially wanted to go tile or hardwood but my wife wanted carpet. I was worried about water vapor problems with carpet since it is in the basement and some other laminate wood flooring in the basement has the ends puckered up like wet cardboard. We eventually settled on carpet tile which has a thick rubber backing on it that acts as a water vapor barrier yet is still pleasant to walk on barefooted. It was easy to install and I only needed a utility knife and a straightedge for making the cuts. The hardest part was figuring the placement so I didn't end up with narrow tiles around the edges and getting the initial row down the center straight. It took me about half a day to do the room from start to finish.

Tony_G

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #21 on: February 05, 2016, 07:48:32 PM »
Very nice job, it almost looks like an actual office, I like the carpet.
What did you use as flooring transition between this carpet and whatever flooring you have outside of this room?

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #22 on: February 08, 2016, 09:05:14 AM »
Currently nothing. The flooring beyond is a cheap laminate flooring that a previous occupant put down that looks terrible and I'm going to redo it in the future. When I do, I will put in a thin thresh hold piece of wood to ease the transition. Right now, the height difference between the thin laminate floor and the carpet tile is probably only an eighth of an inch so not much of a tripping hazard and much less than an added thresh hold would be. Had whomever done a better job making an even joint with the laminate wood, it probably wouldn't need a transition at all.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #23 on: February 18, 2016, 08:21:39 AM »
I was finally able to complete the remaining pieces for the Murphy bed and get everything trundled down around the house from the garage to the office/spare bedroom in the basement. It was no easy feat moving the main bed component by myself but I was able to by strapping it to a dolly on the heavy end and pulling it backwards while lifting up on the light end. I'm guessing it weighs close to three hundred pounds and due to its size, was very top heavy. After a couple months of building, in between the rest of my life, I finally get to assemble it and then start work on the small storage cabinet/closet on one side and a bookcase on the other. After that, it is back to the office side to make drawers and doors.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #24 on: February 24, 2016, 07:20:12 AM »
The Murphy bed is finally completed with the exception of some crown molding I will add later to disguise the wires for the reading lights. I am very happy with the results and it saved me several thousand dollars over buying a comparable kit (I'm not sure I could buy one comparable as most seemed cheaply made) and assembling it. There are only four long screws holding it into the studs behind it so it can also be broken apart and easily moved if needed in the future.

Next up I am going to build a shallow closet/night stand/dresser to fit in the corner to the left of it to have room for guests to store a few clothes during their stay and also I'm going to build some shelving to the right of it for storing other things of ours like photo albums and such.

With This Herring

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #25 on: February 25, 2016, 10:03:50 AM »
It looks so nice!  You did a great job.

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #26 on: February 25, 2016, 03:05:12 PM »
Wow! Looks great! Would you mind sharing your Murphy bed plans? I would like to do something similar as I am building my basement office.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #27 on: February 26, 2016, 06:53:47 AM »
Wow! Looks great! Would you mind sharing your Murphy bed plans? I would like to do something similar as I am building my basement office.

I bought the hardware from www.Rockler.com. If you search for the hardware on there, you can download the plans for free off their website. I bought the Vertical Mount Deluxe Murphy Bed Hardware for Queen for $299 although I see now the same plan on their site is $369 so I would keep tabs and wait for a sale. When you buy the hardware, it is shipped with plans and a video DVD. The plans they ship are more instructive on the assembly part of the project (than the free downloadable ones) but otherwise the same and the DVD goes through the entire process from making the parts to assembly.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #28 on: February 26, 2016, 03:37:55 PM »
The carcasses of the bookshelf and the mini closet/nightstand/dresser are built. Things go really fast when you are building carcasses out of cabinet grade plywood. Also much cheaper than using solid wood. The face frames will be made out of solid oak to hide the edges and stiffen everything up.

Gagnante

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #29 on: February 26, 2016, 04:40:57 PM »
Just posting to say how much I'm enjoying watching your progress :)

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #30 on: February 27, 2016, 09:28:54 PM »
Very nice. How do you cut all of the cabinet pieces precisely without a table saw?

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #31 on: February 29, 2016, 07:27:43 AM »
Very nice. How do you cut all of the cabinet pieces precisely without a table saw?

I set up a couple saw horses and stack all my sheets of plywood on top. When I am ready to cut the plywood to size, I slide several scrap 2x4's underneath the top sheet, making sure the good face is facing down. The trick is to saw a strip of plywood and mark the factory edge. Then you use the factory edge as your straight edge for running your skilsaw along. The reason you put the good face down is because your skilsaw cuts as the blade is cutting upwards so all the splinters occur on the backside and not the face. The disadvantage to this method is that you have to measure the distance between your skilsaw blade and the edge of your guide that runs along your homemade fence and add/subtract that from your measurement and adjust for sawblade kerf to set your fence.

An easier way, is to cut that same strip of plywood and mark the factory edge to use as your straight edge. Then you glue that to another piece of plywood. When you cut through the second piece of plywood using the top glued on strip as your straight edge, the bottom piece will now be the exact distance of your blade. Going forward, you simply line the bottom piece up exactly to your marks, clamp it down and run your skilsaw along the top piece. It makes perfectly straight cuts right where you want them and all while on a nice flat stable surface and doesn't involve me trying to horse a sheet of plywood through a tablesaw all by my lonesome. I made my jig several years back on another project and it collects dust most of the time but when it comes to processing full sheets of plywood, it is probably the jig I value most in my garage.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #32 on: February 29, 2016, 04:38:09 PM »
The latest two pieces of built in furniture for the bedroom half of my project. The narrow one is going to be a closet/nightstand/dresser combo unit. The bigger opening on top will be the closet with a valet clothes hook for hanging a dozen or so shirts and have a door. The small middle part will be a nightstand where guests can sit some stuff without having to get out of bed. I may make a table on slides that allow it to slide out for easier access but haven't decided on that yet. The lower part will eventually have two deep drawers to act as a dresser.

The wider piece is a book shelf that will go on the opposite side of the Murphy bed and will just be for storage. Mostly it will be photo albums and such on the larger bottom shelves.

I made the carcasses out of plywood and then attached a hardwood face frame to hide the edges and give it a more solid look. Where there will be doors, it will also give me a solid place to attach hinges. Where possible I used pocket holes screws and glue but where I couldn't really hide a pocket hole screw I just used glue and clamps to hold it until the glue dried. It took me most of a day to cut out the pieces and assemble the carcasses and then another day to finish up some of the details, attach the face frames and sand. It will probably take me most of the upcoming week to apply the finish stain and polyurethane and then I can cart it down to my office/spare bedroom and attach them to the walls and Murphy bed.

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #33 on: February 29, 2016, 07:08:27 PM »
Awesome! Very impressed with what you are making for furniture.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #34 on: March 01, 2016, 07:45:54 AM »
Awesome! Very impressed with what you are making for furniture.

Thanks! I love working with wood and building something that lasts. I still have my first ever wood project from almost four decades ago that is still perfectly functional to this day. I think it is nearly impossible to buy this kind of furniture that will last decades in today's world.

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #35 on: March 01, 2016, 09:05:33 AM »
I'm very interested in how you're doing this with a simple circular saw. What kind of blade do you use? Do you have to use painter's tape to reduce splintering?

What will you plan to do for doors? I made some simple shaker doors on my table saw. For a first time, they weren't bad...but I already have thought of ways to improve. Will you build your own doors as well?

Where do you buy your plywood? Any preference as to oak, maple birch?

Sorry I have so many questions, but your project is inspiring and I want to do the same!



lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #36 on: March 01, 2016, 10:20:00 AM »
I'm very interested in how you're doing this with a simple circular saw. What kind of blade do you use? Do you have to use painter's tape to reduce splintering?

What will you plan to do for doors? I made some simple shaker doors on my table saw. For a first time, they weren't bad...but I already have thought of ways to improve. Will you build your own doors as well?

Where do you buy your plywood? Any preference as to oak, maple birch?

Sorry I have so many questions, but your project is inspiring and I want to do the same!

I don't have a special blade for my skilsaw but it is less than a year old. If you cut from the backside, i.e. the good face is on the bottom, their is very little splintering on the face side since the skilsaw is cutting on the up stroke. I normally am not worried about the backside splintering because most of the time it isn't visible.

I do plan to make the doors and drawers. The doors will be simple shaker style using solid oak frames and 1/4" plywood panel insert. I will make most of those parts with a tablesaw. I haven't decided what I'm going to make the drawers on. I have a jig that I use to make box joints on my tablesaw easily so I'll probably do that although I do have a dovetail jig for a router as well. It is more finicky to set up but you can make half blind dovetails and such.

I live in a rural area and the only place to get cabinet plywood in a 150 mile radius is at Menards. I have used Birch before but Oak was about $10/sheet cheaper when I started this project so I went with that. I think it is harder to stain than Birch using off the shelf tinted stains from a big box store and get the desired color. So I take a piece of it to my local Sherwin Williams and they custom mix up a stain to the exact color I want and apply it to verify it. They are also very price competitive when it comes to stain.  I also used laminated plywood instead of MDF core plywood since I'm using a lot of pocket screws on this project and they hold better in laminated versus MDF core.

The one drawback to working with plywood is the top veneer layer is very thin and easy to sand through if you aren't careful. If I'm just sanding the plywood face, I start and end with 220 grit sandpaper. If I have to make sure a hardwood edge is flush to the plywood veneer layer, I start with 120 but go carefully and quit just as soon as if feels flush to my fingertips.

Working with plywood is a super fast way to build furniture and it is much lighter and easier to work with than trying to make everything out of solid virgin wood.

BudgetSlasher

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #37 on: March 01, 2016, 08:41:17 PM »
The Murphy bed is finally completed with the exception of some crown molding I will add later to disguise the wires for the reading lights. I am very happy with the results and it saved me several thousand dollars over buying a comparable kit (I'm not sure I could buy one comparable as most seemed cheaply made) and assembling it. There are only four long screws holding it into the studs behind it so it can also be broken apart and easily moved if needed in the future.

Next up I am going to build a shallow closet/night stand/dresser to fit in the corner to the left of it to have room for guests to store a few clothes during their stay and also I'm going to build some shelving to the right of it for storing other things of ours like photo albums and such.

I would look into the code for the wiring before putting up the molding. Junction boxes (and outlets are a junction box) need to be accessible; I believe that they are still considered accessible above a dropped fiberglass ceiling, but I do not know if putting crown molding up would result in a code violation. 

Sorry to start on a down point. You work is amazing, I am only staring out on the wood working adventure, but house has no shortage of projects that we need/want to address that will be better served building it ourselves. I can only hope our end product turns out as nice as yours.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #38 on: March 02, 2016, 07:55:09 AM »
I would look into the code for the wiring before putting up the molding. Junction boxes (and outlets are a junction box) need to be accessible; I believe that they are still considered accessible above a dropped fiberglass ceiling, but I do not know if putting crown molding up would result in a code violation.

Originally, the lights were going to be hardwired to the light switch. But when I did the ceiling, I went with a ceiling attached directly to the joists instead of a drop ceiling. This left me with a few more inches than I had planned for and after building the Murphy bed, I decided that having a bromex wire hanging from the ceiling didn't look nice so I installed an outlet box there. Even with the crown molding, the outlet will be accessible because the crown molding won't go up to the ceiling. It will just be there to provide a decorative built in look even though it is a moveable piece of furniture. I don't think that scenario is a code violation. In fact, the plans themselves call for the lights to be plugged into an outlet behind the bed, which I don't have but would be more inaccessible than what I ended up doing.

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #39 on: March 03, 2016, 09:40:16 AM »
Great looking carpentry! I want to follow your lead in a few years when the first child moves out.

BudgetSlasher

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #40 on: March 03, 2016, 03:24:35 PM »
I would look into the code for the wiring before putting up the molding. Junction boxes (and outlets are a junction box) need to be accessible; I believe that they are still considered accessible above a dropped fiberglass ceiling, but I do not know if putting crown molding up would result in a code violation.

Originally, the lights were going to be hardwired to the light switch. But when I did the ceiling, I went with a ceiling attached directly to the joists instead of a drop ceiling. This left me with a few more inches than I had planned for and after building the Murphy bed, I decided that having a bromex wire hanging from the ceiling didn't look nice so I installed an outlet box there. Even with the crown molding, the outlet will be accessible because the crown molding won't go up to the ceiling. It will just be there to provide a decorative built in look even though it is a moveable piece of furniture. I don't think that scenario is a code violation. In fact, the plans themselves call for the lights to be plugged into an outlet behind the bed, which I don't have but would be more inaccessible than what I ended up doing.

Still accessible is good, I doubt that would be a code violation. Also I must have skipped over the part where you stated it was a movable piece of furniture (or I just assumed that is was permanently fastened in place).

I agree that a basic cable hanging in plain sight would have been unsightly.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #41 on: March 07, 2016, 03:26:49 PM »
Finally got the bookshelf installed on the right and the closet/nightstand/dresser combo installed on the left this weekend. As I had hoped, screwing the Murphy bed to each of those items helped to remove the bow from the long plywood panels on the Murphy bed and made the door gaps even. I still plan on adding a piece of crown molding to hide the wiring a little more and to add a more finished look. I was able to drive down to my local sawmill supplier and load up on a stack of poplar to turn into drawer bodies which I will be building next. I need to build ten drawers total, two for the dresser part in this picture and eight for the desk shown in earlier photos.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #42 on: March 14, 2016, 08:48:10 AM »
I got tired of spending lots of money buying shrink wrapped hardwood at the local big box store which is the only hardwood supplier in my county. So I asked around and found an amish guy who runs a sawmill in a neighboring county and bought a pile of poplar to make my drawer boxes from. I have ten drawers I need to build. I ended up buying 73 board feet of poplar for $109 which is $1.50 per board feet. I think poplar at the big box store in shrink wrapped plastic is closer to $5 per board feet, so there is a lot of savings. The drawback is there is more front end work and that I have to get randomly sized pieces.

I cut everything to rough size since none of the boards are straight or have finished sides. I then ran one edge across my joiner and trimmed the other edge on my tablesaw. I am now gluing them into widths that will be larger than the drawers (8 drawers will be filing cabinets) and I will cut them to finished size later. I should note that I have three sides pieces (six boards total) glued up in each clamped up assembly. The drawers really aren't going to be as deep as it looks. Because you see every single long clamp I own, I have to do this part in several stages. Once all the panels are glued and dried, I will run them through my planer and cut them to size. Then I am going to set up my dovetail jig and start cutting all the dovetails.

The plus side to this is that I will probably never buy anymore hardwood from the big box store. The amish have a nice selection of some really beautiful woods other than oak, cherry and poplar, my choices at the big box store.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2016, 08:51:14 AM by lthenderson »

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #43 on: March 14, 2016, 09:53:14 AM »
Cool! Couple questions. Do you have a planer too? Would you recommend a jointer over a planer for someone who owns neither? Or a planer first?

Also, are you using the glued boards as drawer sides, bottoms? Do you like that better than plywood?

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #44 on: March 14, 2016, 01:00:50 PM »
Cool! Couple questions. Do you have a planer too? Would you recommend a jointer over a planer for someone who owns neither? Or a planer first?

Also, are you using the glued boards as drawer sides, bottoms? Do you like that better than plywood?

I would much rather have my planar over the jointer if I had to choose just one. There are ways to do what a jointer does on the tablesaw albeit not quite as efficiently. To get around a jointer, you can attach a board to a sled on your table saw or a scrap piece of wood that is known to be straight.  Another way is to use a straight edge as a guide and run your skilsaw the length of the board. I have done both in the past but it is still hard to get that nice gapless joint that a jointer produces which is why I bought it when I got into woodworking more seriously.

The glued up boards will be the front/back and sides of the drawer. I am using hardboard for the drawer bottom and will dress up the front with some hardwood. You could certainly use plywood for the entire thing but would have to do a lot of veneering of the edges to disguise the plywood. I would also not use dovetails if going with plywood due to the splintering issue of routing the plywood and instead use a rabbit joint. Also, with my cheaper source of hardwood, I paid only $0.10 per board foot more than cabinet grade plywood costs at the local big box store.

zolotiyeruki

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #45 on: March 15, 2016, 12:59:28 AM »
Who did you ask to find a local saw mill?

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #46 on: March 15, 2016, 08:00:55 AM »
Who did you ask to find a local saw mill?

A local woodworker! Actually the longer story is that I was at a bar talking with an acquaintance about what was going on in our lives and I mentioned this project when I found out he liked to make things out of wood for his family. He told me that the local paint/finish store was having a presentation on finishes for wood and asked if I would be interested in attending. I did and realized that I was attending a monthly meeting of a local woodworking club that was having a speaker about finishes. It was at that meeting, another woodworker gave me the lead on the sawmill I never knew about. I joined the club that day (two weeks ago) and the second meeting will be in a couple weeks. The topic is woodshop storage.

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #47 on: April 02, 2016, 11:06:56 AM »
It's been slow going with vacations and some springtime lawn maintenance that needed doing but I finally got all ten of my drawer bodies complete. The two below are shallower ones for the nightstand unit next to the Murphy bed. The other either are going to be filing cabinets and I need to attach the rails to them yet. Next up I will build the faces for all the drawers and the doors for the upper cabinets. Another trip to the sawmill is in order.

john6221

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #48 on: April 02, 2016, 09:11:58 PM »
Very slick. Dovetails look great! What kind of fronts are you making?

lthenderson

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Re: Office Remodel
« Reply #49 on: April 04, 2016, 07:39:29 AM »
Here is a closeup of the drawers that will be filing cabinets for hanging files. I was able to purchase a couple sticks of 1/2" aluminum angle online shipped to my door. I had to cut them to length with a hacksaw and predrill the holes in them before screwing them onto my drawers. For some reason, I was about 1/4" too short to accept a standard hanging file so I had to add a 1/2" spacer under the aluminum angle to give me the proper height plus a 1/4" of clearance under the file.

For the drawer fronts, I think I'm just going to use solid wood. I'm heading down to the sawmill twenty miles south of here this morning to get some lumber to build the drawer faces and cabinet door stiles and rails. I will most likely get oak for the door parts but for the drawer fronts, I might try something different depending on pricing. Last time I was there I saw some quarter sawn sycamore that looked almost exotic. I'll have to see.