Building the Custom Home Office: Projects for the Complete Work Space

I used this to build my custom workspace after checking around for prices on commercial office cabinets. The plans worked great, the tips were helpful and I really like the style of the clean lines of the euro style faceless cabinets. As others have said, I bought ALL the tools, all the materials, had a great time and saved a bundle. And, best of all the sense of accomplishment and knowing that I have a unique layout with features you couldn't get with prebuilt cabinets. I even modified my design to fasten my cabinets to the wall and created a 9' formica countertop with a rounded corner (and my own matching custom design rounded shelf unit underneath) to create my dream space to mount my 27" TV / PC monitor above. Doing it myself let me design unique features in such as where I wanted cords to come up through the countertop and even a shelf in a cabinet that didn't extend all the way to the back to allow cords to pass freely between the two shelf levels. Definitely pre-think every detail of how you'll use the cabinets and you can build in lots of custom touches. I highly recommend the book and have received numerous compliments on my work, AND, this was my first go at building cabinets. Happy to email a photo to anyone interested, [email protected]

This book is a great book for designing and building a home office solution. The cabinetry he builds in this book is what most people call European (or frameless) cabinetry. All the units are cut from plywood and edgebanded. The top and sides of the desk unit he builds are of a torsion box type construction. This is completely strong and imparts a modern, minimalist look. I like the way he used modern mounting hardware for the computer and desk drawer which elminates some of the more complicated parts of building a desk. One reviewer had problems getting the 32mm hinges: both Rockler and Woodcraft, among others, carry these products. I am still in the planning stage with regards to my office, but I have built both frameless and face-frame cabinetry around my house and I have this to say: the pitfalls with European-style cabinetry is that the measurements have to be much more precise when building your cabinets because there is no way to dress up the edges. Also, unless your walls are completely flat and plum, there will be gaps where the units meet the walls (a good portion of this is solved in his design by developing that space as a place to put cords). This is no biggie, but if you want to use more traditional-style, built-in cabinets, I would suggest getting both Taunton's Workspace Idea Book and Jim Tolpin's Building Traditional Kitchen Cabinets (which you can adapt easily to office cabinetry).

Hi to everyone interested. I want to let you know what a fantastic book this is. I just completed an entire office consisting of 10' desk with 2 sitting areas, a computer caddy, dual lateral file cabinets, two banks of drawers (5 drawers each), upper shelves above the file cabinets (hutch), dual printer cabinet and narrow shelves with lucite inserts. I have to say, it is beautiful. Now, for the best part. I had never touched a piece of wood in my life. I had not done any wood work at all. None, nada, zip. After getting bids for my office in the 12K TO 13K range, I dediced to get some books to see if I could do it myself. I ordered The Custom Home Office: Building a Complete Workspaceby Niall Barrett along with 2 Danny Proulx books as well as others (6 total). I read everything and decided that I could do this. When I acutally got involved with the planning and design, it was Niall Barrett's book that lead me through. I used his book exclusively throughout. I purchased the tools he recommended, even my own table saw. I spent $1000 on tools and about $1500 on materials for a saving of nearly $10,000!!!If anyone wants to see pictures of my office just to verify, you may email me at [email protected]. To all other gals out there considering something like this....GO FOR IT!

The book does a great job of covering both ergonomics and the furniture building side of things. It includes plans for desk cabinets, book shelves, and desks that are actually sturdy enough to support a real monitor. We're still building out our home office, using the book, and have run into only a few frustrations.It only falls short in a few ways. The worst problem is that some of the hardware that's needed is hard to find. The duplex hinges that are used for the cabinet doors are rare, and need to be mail-ordered from no-name specialty shops. It would have been helpful to have either had a web companion where you could buy the products, or to have had alternate plans showing more common alternatives, instead of using something that he's in love with.I also would have liked to see, for each project, a cutting plan. Cutting plans were only supplied for the file cabinet and the bookshelves. Since we tend to get our wood rough-cut at the lumber yard, it helps to have something we can print out. It would also have been good for each project to have a list of the tools needed.