How to Mount a Desk to a Wall With No Leg Supports

Find the studs in the wall the desk is being mounted to. Use an eletronic stud finder, or tap the wall until the resulting resonance sounds muted or dulled. The studs should be spaced approximately 16 inches apart from one another.

Measure from your floor the height at which you wish the desk to be. Mark with a pencil your desired height (42 inches would be standard). Using that mark, set your level against the wall. After finding the horizontal level, mark the line by tracing your pencil the desired width of your desktop.

Cut a 1-by-1 square dowel to the length of your desktop. Using your level line as a guide, affix the 1-by-1 piece by driving 2 1/2-inch screws through the dowel into the wall studs. This will be your ledger.

Measure the width of your desktop. Subtract 2 inches from that number and mark the underside of your desk top with a pencil. Measure the same distance as the width of your desktop, minus the 2 inches, down from the top of your ledger on the wall. Mark the wall.

Find the hypotenuse of the right angle your desk should form with the wall. This gives you the length for your wall brackets, simply complete the formula A squared + B squared = C squared, where A is the length of the desktop, and B is the length measured down from the ledger on the wall. Example. A desktop 44 inches wide will have a measurement of 42 inches (remember, we subtracted 2 inches from the front edge), so its side A is 42 inches, side B is 42 inches, and side C is approximately 59 1/4 inches.

Use the number calculated in step 5 as the measurement for the outside length of your brackets. From that outside length, cut a 45-degree angle on both ends of both brackets so that the bracket sits flush to both the wall and the bottom of your desktop.

Affix these brackets to the desktop and wall with 1 1/2-inch screws. You may want to drill pilot holes for the screws to prevent the pieces from splitting. Affix the brackets to the wall, then the desktop can be laid on the ledger piece and the brackets. Screw the brackets into the bottom of the desktop, while the back of the desktop may be screwed into the top of the ledger.