$30 IKEA beater (Desk)

Howdy y’all. Here’s a desk I made for a friend who was going to buy a desk at Ikea. I told her I could make one for $30 and I came in at budget. The legs were construction site scrap and the top was community college wood shop “scrap.” The $30 was spent on a can of ceramithane and hardware. My friend is a grad student that moves around a lot and has a small apartment. So with this project the constraints were making a desk that could be disassembled and transported easily, and the chair could be tucked in close to the desk so that it’s not in the way.

The desk goes together faster than an IKEA piece, and it requires no tools to put together. Wingnuts hold the top to the legs. The finish is shellac and ceramithane. Et voila! A simple desk with a hardwood top that took no time to build and will outlast anything you can find at IKEA.

So, I guess your time wasn’t worth anything. Do you think IKEA sell their products for the cost of materials?

Come on, you can be more constructive than that! A: The desk was for a friend. B: The friend is a she!

On a slightly more serious note despite the old saying “time is money”, time you spend in your spare time doing something you enjoy is free. I’m developing a simple product I hope to bring to market soon and although have spent a long time on design, CAD, branding and packaging, it hasn’t “cost” me a penny.

Sam, it was a wonderful and generous gesture for a friend – the IKEA comparison wasn’t necessary. It’s apples and oranges.

I don’t think he was posting because he thought he could build a business around making furniture from scrap wood at zero labor cost and run IKEA out of business.