Cheap and easy desk

Step 2 Assemble the shelves and test

The only tricky part here was realizing that the top shelves needed to be mounted upside down. These shelves rely on gravity and the weight you put on them to hold in place, a slightly trapezoidal cylinder rests over these black plastic pieces that rely on the ribs of the posts and the pressure from the shelf itself to hold in place. If the top shelf were mounted according to their instructions, the top shelf would be pulled off the legs by the next step. Since it's just a few screws, it's not a big deal to take it apart if we'd move.

In the background, you'll notice an episode of Charmed on the TV, a broken fan on the right next to the doggy bed, and a length of CAT5 running across the floor.

Comments

[tanya-merp]

Hi, uberwald, Great idea for a simple desk! So I'm making it. But I'm unclear on what you say in this step about mounting the shelves upside-down. Since they rely on gravity (and a little force) to hold everything together, with the wide end of each socket facing down, if I mount them the other way round, how will the shelves stay put? Don't they just slide down the legs? Also, I'm not clear on why you mounted them upside down--how could the top shelf be pulled off if installed correctly? Thanks so much for the clarification!

[uberwald]

Only the top shelf is mounted upside down, and it's held in place by the brackets that hold it to the desk surface -- if you mounted it normally then the whole top would pull off easily. In fact the "top shelf" is totally unusable as a shelf in this instance, unless you have a need to store individual sheets of paper :)

[tanya-merp]

Oooh. Light bulb. Ok, I get it. Thanks for the quick explanation!