The bulk of this Ikea hack involves putting the IVAR cabinets together. Good news: As far as Ikea cabinets go, these are actually pretty easy to assemble without stress. But if you can grab a second person to help, it will go soooo much faster. So, I highly recommend that if possible.

Assuming you like the height of my standing desk as-is, you'd assemble the cabinets exactly according to the Ikea instructions.

The only thing that I noticed that we had to some adjusting on was fixing the huge gap in between the cabinet doors after the cabinets were built. Originally, I had planned to add decorative pieces to each door at the gap, to conceal the gap and add a clean, simple handle for each door. But after chatting with someone who has the same cabinets (and no gap) - thanks Molly - I realized the gap could be fixed.

If you have a gap between the doors when you assemble, I would recommend loosening the screws a little bit on the hinges to see if that helps and if not, try adding small pieces of cardboard under the hinges to push the doors out and more together. The cardboard worked like a charm for me and you can barely see it at all when the doors are open (and obviously can't see it at all when the doors are closed).

If you would prefer a shorter / more standard desk height, you can still use the same cabinets and this tutorial to complete the desk. You will have to cut down some of the pieces of the cabinet before they're assembled though.

The pieces that will need to be cut are: the doors, the side pieces of the cabinet, and the back. With the exception of the back of the cabinet (which is masonite), everything that would need to be cut is solid wood. So you don't have to worry about cutting through materials that will completely crumble under a saw.

Standard desk height is 29-30 inches and the cabinets are roughly 33 inches heigh. So cutting a few inches off the doors, sides, and back before assembly will get you down to standard height. And then when you attach the hinges at the end, you'll have to create new holes for the top or bottom set (depending on where you cut from), but that's it.

If you have experience with power tools, it's a pretty quick and easy job.

Next is the desktop. Once the cabinets are assembled, slide them to the area you are planning on using them in, spacing them out at least 20 inches from one another to allow a space to stand in the middle or pull up a counter stool, etc. Mine are 24 inches apart, for reference.

Once the completed cabinets are in place, measure the length from the end of one cabinet to the end of the other to determine the length needed for the piece of wood that will turn it into a desk. Then measure the width needed.

I pushed my cabinets as far back to the wall as they could go and then measured from the wall to the front of the cabinets to determine my desired width. I decided to keep the width of the tabletop to just the cabinet base itself, and didn't include overhang to account for the drawers sticking out a little further.

So, the final measurement for my wood desktop piece was 20 inches wide x 87.5 inches long.

You can have the wood cut down to size at the home improvement store to make it easier. Or cut it yourself at home. Either way, make sure to give the edges a quick sand (I like to use an electric sander) to remove any splinters, etc.

Once the tabletop is resting in place open top of the cabinets and up against the wall in the back, you can secure it to the cabinets. Just add one screw to each of the corners (even nails can work) to keep things from shifting around.

If you have small children, I would recommend anchoring things like this to the wall. You can use furniture wall straps or something similar. This desk, with the 20 inch deep cabinets, feels quite stable when assembled and has some good heft to it too, weight wise, but I would  still recommend anchoring it to the wall, as I would every piece of furniture in the home, if you have kids. Just to be safe. *And if you opt for the 12 inch deep cabinets instead of the 20 inch, it would be even more important to anchor it to the wall.