Ed R made this because his wife needed a workspace with dual monitors for her work from home setup. But they didn’t have any extra space for a home office. Looking around, Ed saw the deep stair landing and what he termed “6-thousand dollars worth of square footage”.
At first, Ed wanted to put up a quick fold down table for a pop-up desk solution but that quickly spiralled out into an extensive DIY IKEA hack project. His requirements was for a home office that:
- is super minimal and only sticks out around 10″ from wall when closed
- moves up and down to use as a sit/ stand-up desk
- has programmable memory positions for desk height
- plugs into a laptop with only a single USB-C cable that hooks it up to two monitors, keyboard, mouse and webcam AND charges the laptop
- has accessible power outlets/USB charging
- can host staircase dance parties (thanks to individually addressable LED light strips)
- plays Hedwig’s Theme (from Harry Potter) when moving up or down to memory positions, because why not?
What he ended up with is what he calls the “BESTÅmus Prime” — an IKEA Hack that turned IKEA BESTÅ cabinets into a transforming, hidden, flip-down style murphy desk.
IKEA items used:
- BESTÅ frame (3)
- BESTÅ shelf (4)
- UTRUSTA hinges for horizontal door
- SELSVIKEN high-gloss white doors (multiple sizes – 1 large, 2 medium, two small/drawer size)
The making of an IKEA murphy desk
For the full parts list of tools and other materials in this project, please refer to the list on Ed’s blog and gallery of the process. It’s extensive and beyond the scope of this post.
The short version? The plan was to sit three IKEA BESTÅ frames on top of a set of linear actuators that move the cabinets up and down. They are hidden behind the blue fretwork panel under the BESTÅ units. The BESTÅ hold the monitors and the SELSVIKEN doors fold down as a desk.
Sit and Stand desk positions
When the cabinets are in down position with the doors closed, the BESTÅ units look like a regular sideboard cabinet.
Spacious desk space
But when you flip down the IKEA SELSVIKEN doors, voilà it forms a murphy desk with adequate work space for a laptop and keyboard. Flip up the top cabinets to reveal the dual monitors. The monitors are hung on monitor mounts so you can adjust them for a comfortable distance and angle.
The third cabinet is used for storage.
This was an ambitious project which Ed documented in 3 videos. You can watch them on his playlist here. He says, “Honestly, I don’t expect anyone to repeat my project.” Perhaps not, but definitely gives someone looking to DIY a Murphy desk lots of ideas. And inspire someone to make full use of the stairs landing space and also the space under the stairs.
Go check out Ed R’s Youtube channel.
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