How to Make an Office Desk on a Budget

In the modern era more and more companies are allowing employees to work from home - along with this more people are building home offices in their spare time to improve their business and allow them to focus on projects that could potentially make them money.

A home office can be as affordable as you like, it doesn’t always have to involve big budgets and interior designers. It’s not just in home offices we make an office on a budget, in fact sometimes employers may want to be more cost effective and create their own new office desks.

Today I will show you how easy it really is to make an office desk on a low budget - showing you the tools, materials and steps I took.

Table Top (New or old – recycle an old dining table, worktop or desk)

- 4 table legs with matching top plates (to screw legs into) and all fittings

- Tape Measure

- Pencil

- Bradawl

- Screwdriver to fit screw heads

- 3mm Drill bit for pilot holes

Note: Table Top – In this example I bought a second hand dining table from a local charity shop. However you may want to buy brand new table tops

The first thing I did was to measure and mark where I wanted the leg top plates to be attached to my table top. Your table top plates are fixed to the table top and then your table legs are screwed to them – some top plates are reinforced to carry extra weight.

I needed to mark where my top plates will be before drilling my pilot holes; I ensured both my right and left screw-holes where 50mm in from the edge of my table top, just like you can see in the photograph.

You will now have a suitable fixing position for you top plates - using your pencil, mark inside each of the table top plate screws holes. The marks are where you will be drilling your pilot holes; do this for each individual top plate before moving onto the next step.

Next of all you need to remove the plates from the table top and you will see 5 visible pencil marks per top plate - these are ready to be drilled.

Top tip: always remove your top plates, check the marks and place back in place again - this is just to check that all marks match up before drilling – “check twice, drill once” is the motto here.

Place your 3mm drill bit into your drill and carefully begin to drill all your pilot holes – remember to only drill 2-3mm down into the table top as the pilot holes are only there to help your top plate screws ‘bite’ into the table top.

Now you should have all of the pilot holes for your top plates drilled. Next up, we need to attach the top plates, but first you will see that each top plate comes with one large bolt, this goes in the large centre hole of your top plate facing upwards. This bolt will allow your table leg to be connected to the top plate.

You then need to place your top plates in position making sure all the holes match; place your screws inside the holes and screw them into place using your cordless drill or screwdriver. Always secure the three outer screws before the two more central ones.

Do this for all four of your top plates before moving onto the final stage.

The final step of creating your low cost office desk is to secure the table legs to the top plates. You should have four bolts facing upwards ready to screw the legs into.

Take your table leg, one side will have a screw hole ready for the bolt to attach to - the other will usually have a plastic foot - place the hole directly onto the bolt. You will have to use a little bit of force when securing your table legs, push down to ensure the bolt catches and simply screw your table legs until they’re fully secure and stable.

Do this for all of your table legs and then check each one again just to ensure there are no loose legs or top plates.

As you see from my photographs you will now have a fully functional, affordable and stylish office desk ready for use in your home office or work office.

Top Tip: You can use this guide to build a meeting or conference table by buying a larger table top and using more legs to support it