A desk with doors?

August 20, 2008 10:44 AM

Can you recommend a specific secretary, armoire, or rolltop desk that will hold (and hide) a large-ish computer?

DeskFilter! My situation:

- The desk will be in the living room, and I have small children. I would like the desk to have doors of some sort, so I can close it off and make it less tempting.

- I'm tall, slouch, and want legroom (I bang my knees on most armoires). My current desk is 30" front-to-back, which is great.

- I have an iMac, which stands 19" tall. It's thin, but too tall for the rolltops I've found.

- I'm in the USA, near Seattle.

- I don't want to design or build the desk myself (no time, no skills, no time to learn the skills).

posted by The corpse in the library to home & garden (5 comments total)

Mrs. Nightwood and I both have Ikea Alve secretaries (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10115213) with the hutch add-on (http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30115212). They work really well and have decent legroom. When you attach the hutch, you remove the top of the secretary, so the space on the desk is tall, but not very deep - but is perfect for an iMac.

But, we also needed to use bungie cords to keep our small children from getting into the desk.

But the desk is nice looking, has a relatively small foot-print and was easily child-proofed.

You might also check your local Ikea, recently ours (in Round Rock, TX) had the Alves on sale for $79. I don't know if the sale is still going on, though.
posted by nightwood at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2008

Something like this? Looks deep enough, has a lock on it: Armoire.
Look like there are similar items for less from the same maker on Amazon searching for "Sauder armoire".
posted by bartleby at 12:06 PM on August 20, 2008

nightwood -- do you guys have iMacs in the secretaries? thought those desks were too small, but I don't know where I got that impression.
posted by The corpse in the library at 3:04 PM on August 20, 2008

Sauder specializes in this sort of thing. You can get them at most any of the big-box retailers (Wal-Mart, Staples, Sears, etc.)
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:51 PM on August 20, 2008

We have macbooks, not imacs. But I just measured - I had forgotten that the lower shelf in the hutch is fixed, it is the upper shelves that are adjustable.

So, when the doors are closed, the space on the desktop is essentially 30.5 in (w) x 11 in (d) x 19.5 in (h).

So, if your imac is less than 19.5 in tall, it should be OK. (it looks like the 20" mac will fit, but not the 24" mac) according to Apple's specs.
posted by nightwood at 7:11 PM on August 20, 2008