A DIY desk for a balcony home office

   Hello, dear visitor. Today we will continue creating a home office on the balcony. We will make a built-in desk from pine floorboards, choosing this wood because it is inexpensive.

   I will attach the desktop to painted wooden battens fixed to the balcony walls. There are concrete walls on two sides, and the wall facing outside is insulated on the inside with polystyrene foam. To support one end of the desktop, I decided to embed an upright timber in the wall's polystyrene insulation. At the other end, I will use an angle bracket attached to a batten fixed to the concrete wall.

   Using a spirit level, we mark the timber's outline on the wall and cut through the filler and polystyrene foam with a utility knife or any other knife:

We drill through the timber for fixing it to the concrete wall facing outside, drill the concrete beam with a rotary hammer, fit the timber and secure it with wall plugs. Also, be sure to

   In winter, I noticed cold air coming from beneath the windowsill. I picked away the filler and the thin layer of foam and found large unfilled areas underneath. I found and opened up all these gaps so I could fill them at once using one can of foam:

   I dampened the areas to be filled and applied foam beneath the windowsill:

   I dampened and foamed around the back and sides of the desktop-support timber:

   I trimmed the hardened foam. We cut the desk-support battens to suit the desktop, drill their fixing holes and paint them:

   We drill holes in the concrete and drive in the wall plugs:

   We have marked the fixing positions; now we remove the battens and paint them:

   We screw the battens to the walls:

   We drill cable holes in the desktop boards:

   We apply glue to the joints in the tongue-and-groove floorboards and screw them to the battens with Confirmat furniture screws, which I had available. Ordinary self-tapping screws can also be used:

   We cut a gentle curve into the front edge of the desktop with a jigsaw or a saw:

We apply oak-coloured filler to the joints between the boards. Since the paint is dark, this filler will be darker than the desktop boards, visually separating them from each other, which looks excellent. Of course, if I had 4-5 large clamps, I would have glued the desktop together without gaps, but we make do with what we have:

   After filling, we sand the desktop:

   We apply paint to both the top and underside of the desk:

   The desktop after three coats of paint:

   I bought a shaped wooden corner moulding and cut it at 45 degrees:

We paint the corner mouldings 2-3 times:

After fitting the corner mouldings, I filled and painted the fixing points, then applied 3 coats of oil-based varnish. You can see the result below:

   Today I have shown you my version of a desk for a balcony home office. Comments and suggestions are welcome. 

   This was Sergey Lazarenko.

   Let us take a short break and watch a video with another version of a simple bottle cutter: