The cloffice is officially done! The pretty factor has not been added yet (accessories and more) but that is another day. Today I will take you through the steps of installing a floating desktop.

When I last shared the cloffice this is what it looked like…

The walls were painted, the storage was in and the lighting was up. All I needed was a desk. I went to Home Depot with my exact measurements for both the desktop and the cleats which would hold the desktop up. I purchased Poplar plywood which the nice gentlemen at Home Depot cut for me. 

Before I did any work on the plywood I made sure it fit in the desktop. Luckily it was a perfect fit. I sanded the edges, painted one coat of primer and then two coats of Benjamin Moore semi-gloss white paint. I primed the entire piece of wood but only painted the top, bottom and front edge with the semi-gloss paint since these are the only sections of the desktop that will be visible. As the desktop dried I began work on the cleats. 

Cleats are strips of wood used to strengthen a surface attached to it. In this case, the cleats were screwed into the studs to support the desktop and give it the “floating” look I was going for. They can be used to support shelves as well as desktops. I wanted the wires from the wall mounted lamps to hang straight down so I made sure to measure the cleats so as to not interfere with that setup. Having a chalkboard wall came in handy in this case because I was able to mark exactly where I wanted the desktop to sit. I measured so that the top of the desk was 30 inches off the ground.

The cleats were attached in four locations. The back wall, the right side, the right front and the left front. Are you confused yet? Here is a diagram to help you out. 

The cleats were attached to the studs and for safety’s sake I added L brackets to the cleats. This is what I then attached the desktop to by screwing up from underneath the desk.

Since the bookcase is on the left side of the desk the desktop does not reach all the way to the wall. Therefore I wasn’t able to put a cleat there. Instead I put a small cleat behind the door frame. It is not visible from the front of the desk and secures the front left corner.

The following shot shows the bottom side of the desk, screwed into the L bracket. Make sure your screws are short so as not to poke through the top of the desk! 

The last step was adding a piece of poplar to the front of the desk. This piece will support the 47 inch opening between the door frames and keep the middle of the desk from sagging. I screwed it into the desk from underneath. It fits perfectly between the front of the desk and the door frame, giving the whole desktop a very “built in” feel.

My favorite image from this entire project has to be the following…

The bubble is in the middle! It’s level!!! I did a lot of checking along the way just in case. A lot. I don’t think I’d hear the end of it if the pencils and pens were constantly rolling to the side! 

Are you wondering where the wires went from the wall mounted light fixtures? Simplest solution ever. More on that next time…