💻 Laptop table a DIY project 🔨
As a software engineer in a 9–6 job I always manage to take some time out for learning but was never comfortable using my laptop with the space and surroundings.
My observations were that I never had a proper place of sitting where I could keep my laptop and stay there for hours. During university times I always used to sit down on the headrest side of the bed and use my laptop and this posture wasn’t helping with my job routine as it made me sleep within an hour or so. The thought of having a proper table was obvious to struck my mind. I was never willing to go out on the streets and shop for a laptop table so i started to find one on the internet. After countless hours of searching and surfing on the web i had enough ideas to make it myself. I had done woodworking projects before and it seemed possible for what i had in my mind.
Blueprinting the project
Just before starting with the project i made a blueprint on paper, i guess drawing something on paper makes your vision more clearer especially when you are practically going to make it. The height and width of the table were major concerns. I wanted a table just enough to fit a laptop, mouse and few extras in the corner, so i decided to make the table 26" wide. For surface area I decided to keep the length 18" which i think is ideal for a laptop. I chose 30" for height keeping in mind all computer chairs are adjustable and the height for a table is always dependent on the chair’s height. According to the blueprint I made, the total amount of wood needed was calculated as:
(26"x2)+22"+(30"x4)+24"+(16"x3)+(15"x2) = 296" = 24.6 ft.
After completing this project i made a blueprint on sketchup (Not a hard tool if you love playing with shapes 😉)
Timber Shopping and Preparation
I went to the timber shops near my house and bought 3 pieces of (2 x 1)sized wood planks almost 10 feet in length. I didn’t buy the 9" plank as I already had a cutout piece which was just enough for my project. You could refer to these wood planks by ‘partal’ which is a common type of wood in Pakistan and easily available on any timber shop. Other items that I bought were 2" nails (without head) and german glue for wood.
With all the materials in hand I readied my tools which were nails, glue, inch tape, pencil, square ruler, hammer, nail plier, sanding paper, C Clamps, hacksaw, circular saw.
How did I do it ?
To start off i cut 2 pieces of 16" and 2 pieces of 26" from the 2x1 wood and made a square frame by gluing and nailing them together. After the base frame was ready I prepared the legs of the table from which each were 30" long.
There was a weird technique i thought of before hammering the legs into the frame, having a 2x1(AxB) wood I thought to keep the front facing legs vertical (B faces forward) to the frame and the legs at the back attached horizontally (A faces forward). The reason behind this was to give myself more room in front as i would drag my chair inside the table. If i was unable to explain what I did, observe the picture below.
All four legs joined an uneven, I now had to give them support from the bottom. It was obvious to leave the front side open for the chair to slide in, which leaves us with two sides and a back. 7 inches from the bottom i nailed the sides of the table which were of 15" each and for the back I cut a 24" piece and nailed it over the sides supporting over rear legs. The image below shows the current progress.
I couldn’t just wait to complete the top by glueing two pieces of 9" together onto the frame, i used the circular saw to cut the 9" plank resulting in two pieces from which each were 26.5" long. I had cut the pieces 0.5" longer because i wanted the top to be slightly larger than the frame and in reality the width of each piece was 9.25" (which made the complete top 0.5" wider than the top frame). I observed the top by placing it before gluing and realized that i had to add another support in between to make the top more strong and sturdy, so i cut a 16" piece and quickly nailed it in middle and started to apply glue on the top frame. It was somehow hard to stick both pieces together onto the table, in order to achieve this C clamps were used, because I only had two of these some stone bricks were also placed above the 9" boards to apply extra pressure.
I used the table for a couple of days then felt something was missing really bad, it was the leg rest..
So one of the final efforts was cutting a piece of less than 22" and nail it in the bottom of the sides because I thought it was ideal there. Finally to add the cherry on top I did a little sanding on the each side to make it smooth.
Conclusively,
There are a lot of improvements on the design, after using it for a couple of months I now think it could have been better if it was wider (probably 34" rather than 26") and another thing is that I use the leg rest a lot and all the bottom supports are not on the same height makes it uncomfortable sometimes, although i can’t be sure on this thought of mine because i still haven’t bought a computer chair yet (I’m using a chair from an old dining table😔) .
Thank you for reading this article I thought to make it a ‘how-to’ which instead seems like a vlog of some sort. Feel free to discuss anything regarding woodworking, i’m a programmer by profession and no expert at woodworking but i’ve made a couple of projects like these.
Be sure to leave a clap and once again thanks.. 😊
