The Dale C. Maley Family Web Site

Raising my Dell Computer 12 inches

In my home office, my Dell computer sets on the floor about 12 inches to the right of my desk chair. There is no room to put it on my desk. Each time I want to plug in a USB cable to the front of the computer, I just about tip over out of my chair.  My office is also in the basement, so 1" of water would damage the PC.

I decided to make a wood frame (being a woodworker) to raise it 12 inches. Here is my google sketchup drawing of the frame:

I will post a picture when I get it built.......DC Maley  07/19/2010

Here is the finished stand, ready to be stained:

Pine is especially difficult to finish.  One technique that has worked well on many past furniture projects is to use this process:

-sand with 60 grit
-sand to 220 grit
-brush on stain
-once entire piece has stain brushed on, wipe off stain with rag
-apply polyurethane coat #1
-sand with 220 grit
-apply polyurethane coat #2

Some variants of this process I have used is to not wipe the stain off at all.  Another variant is to brush on a 2nd coat of stain and leave it on or wipe it off. Here is the stain I used:

And here is the finished piece placed into service:

Now I can reach over from my office chair and plug in my USB cables for my camera or cell phone into the bottom port on the Dell PC.....without tipping my chair over!