My DIY fluted/ribbed desk that cost less than £100 to make! Originally I was looking at this HK Living console table to use as my desk in the new living room but it was around the £1000 mark which I just couldn’t justify – especially since all our money is currently going into our kitchen renovation at the moment! So I decided to take matters into my own hands (and Matt’s – bending down is hard when you’re 37 weeks pregnant ha!) Now I can’t take credit for this idea in the slightest as I’ve been inspired by a few other people on Instagram – Zozansinjari’s desk, Johannalinn’s desk and Luke’s side table , but I wanted to document this so that any of you that wanted to, could easily follow the way we did it to create your own version!

HERE’S HOW WE DID IT:

You will need:

Table top – we used the IKEA LINNMON 120 x 60cm

Heavy Duty Cardboard Tube or Duct Pipe

Moulding Strips – these are the ones we used to get the closest match that we could to the moulding on our cupboard to the left

Tape measure

Gorilla Glue/Wood Glue

Saw/Circular Saw

Hammer & Nails/Nail-gun

Paint

Brackets

Woodfiller

Sandpaper

 

I managed to get a Heavy Duty Cardboard Tube on Ebay for a bargain (dimensions 1360MM X 200MM) which we then cut in half to use for the two legs

The heavy duty cardboard tube I ordered had end lids on each end (like a giant poster tube) so these kept the sand in (see further down) – if you don’t have lids you will need to cut circular ends to cover the end to keep your sand in (you could use plywood or MDF or something similar).

This is the moulding I selected – I wanted it to be as similar as possible to our fluted cupboard. You will need to measure the circumference of your tube to work out how many pieces of moulding you need. I think we used around 21.

Cut your moulding to the length of your tubes.

Apply your wood glue to your first strip of moulding.

Use a spirit level for at least the first piece of moulding – this will ensure that they don’t all start to go skew whiff.

You might find some of the mouldings are bowed – and glue may not be strong enough to secure them if that’s the case, we used a nail gun to keep those pesky ends down! The nails also helped secure the end lid on the bottom of the legs which later on keeps the sand in.

Repeat this process until you are all the way around your tube.

Then we tied string tightly around each leg just in case any of the strips of wood came loose and left them overnight to dry.

Fill any imperfections or nails with wood filler, leave to dry and then sand down.

Paint with your choice of colour – or don’t! This would look just as effective with the natural wood colouring. I used an eggshell finish so the legs are easy to wipe down if necessary.

Secure your brackets to the inside of your new desk legs – don’t worry about any nails showing on the inside of the tube, you aren’t going to see these once the top is on.

Fill your legs at least a third full with sand (any sand will do – we had some left over building sand) to give them some weight to make your table more secure and less top-heavy.

Screw and secure your brackets on the legs to the tabletop!

TA-DA! That’s it!

It might be an idea to secure the desk to your wall with wall brackets just to make it extra secure too!

Be sure to tag me on Instagram if you give this DIY a go!