Gym Desk

Anyone that has spent the past year working or doing school work from home has learned that there is a great value in a dedicated work space. The kitchen counter or coffee table just don't provide the ergonomics and support of a proper desk. When my wife was studying from the couch, I could see how uncomfortable and easily distracted she was and knew we needed a better solution. In our small house, there just was not a place for an office or desk. The only spare space we had was affectionately known as "the gym". It was just big enough for a treadmill and a few small weights. It became obvious that for her to be able to effectively study, she needed a proper desk. The only space available was the gym. So I developed the Gym Desk to serve as a work station and organizer for gym equipment.

The fundamentals of the Gym Desk are:

1) One side of the desk must also include a dumbbell rack and storage for shoes or yoga mats,

2) Storage space for a plyo box,

3) Enough outlets to charge a laptop, cell phone, and running watch,

4) As much extra storage as possible, and

5) Must fit in a 4 foot wide area.

- Desk Construction Materials

I used a combination of wood and metal for this build. You can use just wood or even modify an existing desk or table. I'm not going to list specific materials since my build was so specialized.

- Dumbbell Rack

You can build this as well out of wood. I was using metal for the legs and decided to buy an A-Frame Dumbbell Rack and weld them to.

-Power Strip

For all the power needs.

The Gym Desk is 46 inches wide and 22 inches deep.

The right leg is 30 inches tall and includes a 3" deep drawer, a 5" deep drawer, and storage for a plyo box.

The left leg is 25 inches tall and is made of a dumbbell rack and storage area in a triangle configuration.

Under the top there is a 5" shelf modeled after a Paulk work bench. This storage area is open on the left side and front of the desk. There is a 4-outlet power strip inside the storage area.

These dimensions were chosen based mostly off the space I had to build in. Your cut list will be different depending on the size or type of desk you build.

My wife played a lot of softball growing up and her dad still had pieces from her old batting cage. I went by and picked up a few scrap pieces of this 1-inch square tubing and cut them to my needed dimensions. I decided to leave them the original color to reminder her of the batting cage (and save me on prep work!).

Before welding either side, I made caps for all the legs. The bottom caps were made from 1x1-inch pieces of steel with a hole drilled in the middle and a nut welded over the hole. This let me install self leveling feet. The top caps were made from 1x2-inch pieces of steel to give me mounting points between the legs and top.

The right leg are a basic box frame. Each side is 30-inches tall and required two rails that I am using for drawer slides positioned at 2-inches down and 6-inches down. The rails have a 0.5-inch internal overhang. When making these welds, I put pieces of scrap plywood down to help keep everything square and aligned. The plywood also was the spacer to keep the rail inset even for the drawer slides. The two sides were then connected with 1-inch tubing at 3-inchs and 7-inchs from the top of each side to complete the box.

The left leg took some additional math. I knew I needed the overall height to be 25-inches so that I had room for my Paulk shelf. I began by disassembling the A-frame dumbbell rack so that I could put both holders on the same side in the leg construction. I used my 25-inch tubing and dumbbell racks to mock up the configuration for the final angle. What I found was there was no really good angle to connect it directly. My solution was to make a 10.5-inch extension arm for the bottom and a 3-inch arm from the top of my leg and attach the dumbbell racks to those arms. I welded these in place and had both sets of legs.

These are pretty straight forward desk construction. The desk top is made from purple heart and maple. I glued them together and added some pocket screws in the maple strip. The drawers are 3/4" plywood boxes. On the drawers, I notched a 0.5-inch relief on each side so they could slide on the previously-inset square tubing. After I had the drawers completed, I made drawer faces out of maple and purple heart, with the colors and dimensions inverted to the table top.

My wife does triathlon races and sticking with the Gym Desk theme, I made drawer pulls shaped like a running shoe and bicycle on a CNC machine. I also completed the plyo box from 3/4-inch plywood. There are 10 other instructables on building a plyo box so I'm not going to add additional steps here.

The Paulk-style shelf was made from maple and is 5-inches tall and 26.5-inches wide. I added a 4-outlet power strip mounted to the back of this shelf. It is a good place to store power cords, note pads, and other odds and ends to keep the desk top free.

After the legs are in position, it is just a matter of putting the top on and attaching at the anchors. The Paulk-shelf rest on the left leg and pushes against the drawers, with the right leg anchor points connecting to the top. Plyo-boxes are different heights depending on the orientation. We made a subtle mark to identify the orientation for storage. My wife taped all her race bibs on the inside for extra decoration and all the dumbbells and yoga mats closed the loop on the gym desk.

I built this desk for my wife when she was studying for the CPA exam. Once she had her own study space and wasn't balled up on the couch or hunched over the kitchen counter her test scores went up. There was no way we could have predicted we would both working from home this past year. An ergonomic work space and access to basic exercise equipment are both beneficial to healthy living. I never imagined the impact the Gym Desk would have but we are so glad we have it.