When I was designing our house I referred frequently to the Not So Big House books by architect Susan Susanka. She notes the efficient use of living space on a boat, where space is so limited that not one square foot is wasted. At the design stage, our finances forced us to shrink our house plans and then shrink them again, and I remembered her experience (not uncolored by my admiration for the nautical Mr. Tartar in Dickens’ novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood.) I think with one exception, we have designed our house so that not one square foot is wasted. (The exception came when we decided to combine my studio and our bedroom, and ended up with a gap on one side. Oh well.)

The nautical efficiency is carried on in our selection of a home for the kids’ computer. The only public spot we had available was in the dining room, in the corner by the table. Our tax return budget included money for a new computer, and we’ve wanted to put the old one downstairs in a public area where anyone could use it and we wouldn’t have to worry about what they were doing. (We’ll be purchasing NetNanny shortly to keep the porn epidemic out of our house, and Jessica will be the admin on all computers—just to keep it safe.)

But we didn’t have space for a computer desk—not to mention no money. So I bought this 2’x2’ sheet of plywood at Home Depot for about $6 (yes, it’s expensive for a small piece of wood, but it’s cheaper than buying a whole sheet that I don’t need) and ripped it in half diagonally to form a triangle. I also nipped a couple of inches off the angle at back to leave space for cords in back. I found a couple of 1×2 scraps at home and, after measuring and levelling, had Emma screw them into place. (She’s been wanting to use tools more.) Then she helped me screw the shelf to the wall supports, I stained it, and brought the old computer downstairs to its new home. Viola! (or was that voila?) The $6 computer desk.

It’s quite comfy; I’ve tried it. It’s not in the way, since people don’t make a habit of walking into corners. I’ve run a phone line along the wall and over to the kitchen phone jack so that we can get “internet access” from this computer. (I hope to have a wireless connection one of these days, but in the meantime we’ll enjoy having The World’s Slowest Internet Connection: one page every ten minutes!) Kids still watch movies, play games, and twiddle in Illustrator and Photoshop like they do now; but they don’t have to throng Dad’s studio while he’s at work. Mom can do her Facebeook, and everybody enjoys the screensaver slide show with its 15,000+ images I’ve taken over the years. As soon as I have 20 minutes to get the external hard drive moved downstairs, we’ll even have dinner music.