[lockburn]

In my kitchen I'd like to add a desk area to put a laptop so when friends and family come over, they can check email, surf the web, etc.

I don't have a lot of room depth wise. So, I was envisioning making an 8 foot long desk area from:

- a 36" cabinet
- a 24" 'gap'
- a 36" cabinet

The countertop will go over the two cabinets and the chair goes under the 'gap.

So, I don't have enough depth for a 24" deep cabinet, and the 12" cabinets aren't deep enough to comfortably hold the laptop. So, I'd like to see if its possible to cut down the base cabinets to an 18" depth.

Any thoughts?

[DesignDiva]

You could...but you would not be able to use any drawers in the cabinets.

How about using the shallower wall cabinets, but either pulling them out from the wall by mounting a 2x4 behind them, or having an overhang just at the laptop center?

[lockburn]

I'm not sure about the overhang. The cabinets could hold paper, small appliances, etc. I don't think I want to keep ducking under the countertop to get them, and possibly banging my head on the way up.

I was originally thinking about pulling them from the wall with a 2x4 frame. It would provide an area for cable management as well. But then I figured, 6" of depth would be a 50% improvement. So, if it wasn't too hard to cut down the cabinets (I have a table saw, etc), I could use that.

I understand about the drawers, so they would have to be 2 door 36" wide cabinets. I don't have any Ikea cabinets yet, so I'm not sure how they are put together, and so how they can be trimmed down.

[DesignDiva]

You'd have to cut down the two sides and top and bottom, redrill the connectors for the cams, and redrill the shelf holes along the back of the two sides.

I meant to have an overhang bump out ONLY where the opening for the chair is (actually it would have to be a counter stool) and regular overhang of 1 1/2 inches over the two cabinets.

Or you could use a keyboard drawer (or make a long 24" one) hung from under the countertop and put the laptop on it, then pull it out to use. But if you don't have room for 24" deep cabs, you probably don't have room for that.

[lockburn]

Hmm, good suggestions. I think I will order my cabinets, take a look at them, and see if I want to order 24" deep cabs to cut down to size. Cutting the sides, top, and bottom wouldn't be bad. Redrilling the holes for the cam could be a pain (though I have a drill press and forstner bits). And, I've got a self-centering drill guide to do the shelf pegs, though I could do those on the drill press as well.

So, I guess I just need to look at the cab and see how hard it would be to redrill the cams.

Thanks!

[torrus]

If you use two 18" cabinets instead of the 36" you could use the 12" deep drawers ( and have 6" behind them for cable management).