How to build a "murphy" work desk.

Like many other creative people out there, I needed more space! I work in what is my studio 90% of the time but converts back into a guest bedroom 10% of the time. Adding another desk and making a bigger mess was not an option --

Lucky for me I am married to a structural engineer - aka a guy who can concept and build things! He built me two amazing tables that fold down and I am going to post exactly how we did it so you can do it too. This would even be great to install in a closet workspace (like I had in my tiny apartment - where was he then??)

We started with a 31 x 48 piece of birch and bought a piano hinge. We "through bolted" the piano hinge rather than screwed it in so that it would hold on the wall.

DH thought we needed a cable system to take the weight off of the hinge, so we bought some 1/16" cable and installed it on the table and the top rail (see below) like this:

Next we cut down 2 - 4" strips of birch to 48" and mounted them to the studs in the wall. One will mount to the hinge, and other to the top where the table will close.

The other end of the cabling system gets attached to the top rail as pictured above. Then we screwed the hinge already on the table to the bottom rail of the wall. It helps to note that had another table to hold the table so I wouldn't have to. We attached the cables to a twisty cable tightener thing called a turnbuckle.

It holds! Wow! It needed a fastener to keep it closed when not in use.

As you can see, the backside of the table is not so pretty. The solution? Wrap it in fabric! We opted for a solid color since both tables are on either side of the TV and a pattern would have been too visually distracting. I put down a quilting batting first to cover up the bumps and lumps and then wrapped it to the table top - where I don't care if there are lumps and bumps.

Voila! Extra workspace for me, and a guest bedroom for our guests!