Spring 2021 ORC Office Desk Plans

It’s just one week until the big reveal of the Spring 2021 One Room Challenge and we are frantically trying to finish on time! Because of course! It wouldn’t be a One Room Challenge if it didn’t come down to the last minute. Colin has been working so many hours in the garage and today he is going to take over the blog to talk about his office desk plans. As a 6’4″ tall woodworker, he couldn’t just buy a desk. He wanted to custom make a desk to fit his work style and body frame. If you’ve ever thought about making your own desk, keep reading for his tips, tricks, and other office desk plans.

I have built many desk over the years and typically I make them out of melamine, which is particle board covered in a white laminate. These desks have always been built on a budget for a specific space. They have also always been large! This desk is going to be built out of red oak, and I plan to keep it for a long time – not just for the space I currently have. This is the reason why I had some trouble coming up exactly the right design. To help with this, I got the rough design down and just started working on things that I knew were going to be part of the build.

Office Desk Plans by Step

Design
Gather materials
Rough cuts
Glue up pieces as required
Cut everything to final size & Joinery
Dry fit
Final glue up
Sand, sand, sand
Stain and finish

1. Design

When designing this desk, I had some trouble because I kept thinking of it as my forever desk. This made all of the design decisions more daunting for me. I had to stop thinking that because let’s be honest, if there is something I don’t like it, I can just fix it up. To design the desk, I first had to start with what I wanted out of the desk, also known as the design input in the medical device world (to call out my profession).

Desires from the desk:

drawer for easy access to files;
drawer for office supplies;
drawer for random desk things;
two tiers with a shelf for quick access to reference material;
a cut out to fit my body/chair;
a foot rest;
wire management;
a clean look with dual monitors.

After coming up with the basic concept, and coming up with my requirements, I then had to make some decisions about the design. For instance, how to hold up the desk. I choose to build an X leg on the left side and put the shelves on the right. To be honest as I write this, I am still unsure about how these will connect to the top; I want to be able to easily switch them if the room calls for it. This will end up being a game time decision. The desk is going to made out of several different pieces including: the top shelf, the desk top, the X leg for the left side, and the drawer system for the right.

2. Gathering Materials

I have a great lumber yard 10 minutes from my house, so I determined roughly how much wood I need and picked it up. I got several pieces of red oak that measured 8 feet and 6 feet long by 1 inch by 6 inches (thickness x width). Additionally, I needed wood for the drawers. To save on cost I will make the interiors of the drawers from pine, a much cheaper wood. I also decided to make the drawer bases from plywood. The whole drawer system is going to be made out of a leftover plywood from other projects. The front of the drawers are going to be made from the red oak, which is what will be seen when looking at the desk.

3. Rough cuts

The next thing I did was cut the rough dimensions so things start to take shape. Always do some thinking ahead of time to make the most use of your wood and to get the grain in the desired direction. I first cut the pieces for the shelf and the top to the rough length. Next I rough cut the X Leg pieces to their required width on the table saw. The X legs then needed to be cut on the appropriate angle to make the X pieces.

The drawer system was cut to size from the start, no need for rough cuts here. There are two sides (24” tall by 27” deep), and there are two dado’s which two cross pieces will sit to hold it all together. The drawers are three different sizes and were made with the pine. These were all dove tailed together to make the box frame, and then the piece of 3/16” plywood was used for the base. A groove was cut into the bottom of the box to hold in the plywood. After this, things start to take shape. Now I can lay everything out and start to get a look at what the final state will look like.

4. Glue Up

Right now I am in the glue portion of the project. Over the next few nights I will get things glued up and ready for installation.

5. Cut to Final Size and Joinery

After I get the initial glue complete, I will still need to cross cut the top of the desk to make sure the corners are square. I will also need to make a decision on how to connect the legs and the drawer assembly- ideas are still churning around! The last piece cut I will need to make for the desk is the “body notch”, or a curved piece in the middle of the top. This is a feature I have grown to love in my past builds. Then use a router and template to make sure everything is precise.

6. Dry Fit

The dry fit should go pretty smoothly for this project. In its simplest form, the desktop is going to sit on top of an X leg on the left and some shelves on the right. There will be a back rail that I can rest my feet on as I work. The shelf will sit on the desktop.

7. Final Glue up

For the final glue up, I will need to determine how to attach everything and then glue those pieces as required. By this point most of the sub-assembles will be glued and this should be minimal for this project. I want to be able to disassemble the desk without too much hassle if needed in the future.

7. Sand, sand, sand

This is always a part of the project I least enjoy. I will likely be sanding for about 3 nights straight in order to get everything to a nice smooth finish. Don’t skip or skimp on this step.

7. Stain and finish

It will be nice to apply the stain and finish in the shop in nice weather. It was bitterly cold during my last few projects and made for poor staining conditions. I will apply a pre-conditioner to the drawer assembly which is made from left over ¾” thick birch plywood. Right now I am thinking a golden oak stain, but we will see what ends up happening.

Come back next week to see these office desk plans come to life in our final office reveal. We are working hard to complete this space and can’t wait to show you the before and after! Make sure you check out all the other One Room Challenge rooms this season. I’ll be highlighting some favorites on my Instagram this week! As always, thank you to Linda Weinstein and Better Homes and Gardens for hosting this challenge!