Builders Share: Work/Play Station

Is there a boy whose room is not a complete disaster area at least 90% of the time?

I've always tried to keep my cool regarding Ramon's cluttered room. His room is small and most everything in it came by way of me and his mom, so I'm largely responsible for dilemma. To saddle a six year-old with the problem of organizing hundreds of unclassifiable items of vastly differing shapes and size in a 9x12 space that must also hold a single bed and dresser is simply inhumane. I know I couldn't do it.

But note that I said I TRY to keep my cool. For some strange annoying psychological hiccup, I can't help but be frustrated by the clutter that mounts in every corner. The light saber that crashes to floor from its precarious leaning when I'm coming in to say goodnight sends my blood-pressure soaring. When I trip over the gigantic stuffed red Clifford on my way to put the Cat In The Hat book back on the shelf, I want to rip his head off. Clifford's that is.

But then I remember the high-pitched battles of my youth that stemmed from conflicts over what constituted an acceptable living environment. Or more succinctly, one boy's mess is another parent's nightmare. My only admonishments to Ramon are, "we've gotta keep the floor clear so it's safe." And of course this rarely happens.

This all comes to mind because today I installed a small desk in Ramon's room, and in order to do it I needed him to clear out a corner. I thought maybe this would be an opportunity for dad and son to do a little task together. Well, it took about two minutes of picking up of toys for Ramon to become completely engrossed in one of the toys he was supposed to be finding a new home for. His interest in helping dad responded inversely.

I let it go, and finished the job alone.

This little task was mounting a drop-leaf desk on the wall. It's an Ikea furniture piece that I used to have mounted for myself in a little workspace in the last apartment we lived in. I'm hoping it'll serve him well as a desk, and the fact that it can fold down out of the way makes it good for his tiny room.

The first thing I needed to do, after toy cleanup, was find the studs in the wall. The desk itself has four pre-drilled holes for mounting screws but these are not spaced at stud width. I wasn't about to use hollow wall anchors for mounting a boy's desk. I could only imagine the desk being torn from the wall and big chunks of the wall coming with it. I would mount this to the studs.

After locating the studs I had to decide on a proper height. A quick web search gave me student desk heights in the range of 22" to 30". I actually think the desks in his classroom are lower. But I was able to pull him away from his latest endeavor for long enough to help me set a height, and we decided on 27".

With the studs located and the height set, I decided on the horizontal position so that it cleared the loft ladder on the left by an inch, and the wall on the right by a couple inches. Then I marked the desk where the studs lined-up so I could drill holes for the mounting screws.

A helper would have been helpful for holding the desk in place while I mounted it with 3" wood screws, but I was able to do it alone using a few choice words. And with the desk in place, I was even able to get Ramon to pull himself away from what was probably his sixth endeavor since that toy distracted him from cleanup, and come try out his new workstation.