A Home Built Office Desk

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A desk gets hard use and deserves a tough finish. Tung Oil and other natural finishes are fine for solid-wood dining room sets, but plywood is glue under a very thin veneer of wood, and oils soak in unevenly. An oiled ply surface can remain greasy—and the oil can soak into your papers. Best is to apply a floor finish.

I treated all of my desk—pine as well as ply—with a Danish walnut stain, brushing on and wiping off till I got the desired depth of color. Then I applied a satin fin ish polyurethane varnish—two coats of gloss finish followed by two coats of satin, with a light sanding between each. Modern posy goes on so smoothly that a brush application looks like it has been spray-painted.

BUILD A CABINET

This cabinet is designed and built after you are sure of your desk's height. The base is a simple rectangle of 2x4s screwed together, capped with the plywood lower shelf and trimmed in front with pine or more plywood. Sides are built up from pegboard and 1"-thick shelving (as in "Build the Seed Starting/ Planting Bench of Your Dreams" [July, #150] or as below), which is heavy but sturdy enough to stand up on its side without framing. Cleats and trim are scrap 1x2 left from securing the desk and shelves can be pine boards or more plywood.

Unless you are feeling strong enough to maneuver 4x8' sheets of 1/2" plywood, and have a full-size pickup truck to carry it in, buy 4x4 half-panels—or better, 4x2 quarter panels precut from stock 4x8s by a large home-improvement center.

Dimensions

You will have to design the cabinet to fit your desk. Height of the cabinet equals distance from floor to the bottom of the desk; the depth equals the depth of the desk less an inch (less 1 1/2" if you plan to trim the front or build doors). It makes a betterlooking base and avoids constant kicking if you remove the notch at the front bottom of the sides to have an inset kickboard. The 2x4 base can be any width you want the cabinet to be. Depth is same as the bottom edge of the 1/2"-plywood sides.

Sides

1. Cut the 1/2" plywood sides to height and depth (less an inch of inch and a half) of desktop.

2. Lay the sides side-by-side with inner surfaces facing up, inner edges touching, and upper and lower margins even. With screws long enough to go through cleats and bite into, but not go through plywood (1" or 1 1/4"), fasten the shelf cleats and rear cleats to each.

Base

1. Cut the four base boards per the drawing from 2x4s. Fasten with 1 1/2 drywall screws. Be sure the rectangle is square at all corners.

2. Fasten the bottom shelf on top of the base with 1" screws.

Attach Sides to Base

1. Pilot drill and countersink holes at corners and every six inches along the bottom of the side boards.

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