Though our desk was a success from an aesthetics standpoint, it wouldn’t be a true “Alex” project without doing some sort of high tech integration. Truth be told, part of the reason I actually wanted to build my desk from scratch was due to my desire to go on my typical techno-overload. In other words, I wanted to build a desk that was constructed with tried and true woodworking techniques but only felt like it would be worth it if I were also packing it full of technology bells and whistles. Weird enough for you? Well, it's sort of the story of our whole house.

We're covering a lot of stuff in this post, so it is a little bit all over the place. If you have any specific questions about anything that you want me to elaborate on, let me know in the comments and I can provide more info on it there or as a separate post. Also, I know we covered much of this information in our original desk construction post from back in November, but some of it is worth repeater for new readers.

Even though the majority of the bells and whistles wouldn’t actually be used until the desk was pretty much completed, our planning and implementation for these aspects of the project started very early on. We kicked it all off by creating an access panel in the side of the left cabinet next to where the computer would ultimately live.

This desk access panel was a critical component to our overall concept of an "antique looking but functional for modern standards" desk. One of my major pet peeves of computers that are placed inside desks is that you have to completely remove the computer from the desk to do any work on it or to connect a new peripheral. This process involves disconnecting everything, pulling the computer out, probably scratching the shelf it sits on, and constantly having to shove extra lengths of wire behind the computer to allow for the necessary movement. What a hassle!

Rather than deal with all of the garbage associated with pulling the computer out, I thought “what if I build in a removable panel so I can take it off whenever I want to work on the computer?” With that innocent and simple concept, the “Pimp my Custom Desk” experience was fully underway.

After sketching the removable panel into our original desk concept I built it as sort of an open door without hinges. 

To disguise the fact that it could be taken off, I attached the baseboard directly to the panel. Once it was all stained, you can barely tell there is a panel there.

With the removable panel completed, I would have a great way to access the side and rear of my PC in a straight forward and easy manner. This would allow me to do any necessary work on the computer without the need to drag everything out, so problem number one was solved. 

But what about heat from the computer, where would that go?

As you may know, computers create a tremendous amount of heat, and in a cabinet that heat needs somewhere to dissipate, otherwise it will end up shortening the life of the computer, or worse, killing it altogether. For this I decided that I needed to wire up a couple of computer fans right into the desk. Yes, you read that right, I wanted to include computer fans right into the design of the desk.

I figured that heat rises, so I cut a hole near the top and rear of the left cabinet above where the computer would eventually live (that's the large square cutout above the access panel in the earlier photo). The hole was large enough for two 90mm computer fans to be mounted side by side, but far enough back so you wouldn’t actually see it unless you were looking for it.

After making a paper template with all of the various holes necessary, I cut a custom fan grill out of a bit of the cherry so I could mount the fans to the grill before installing them in the desk, and then install the fan grill in place. Though I'm sure it doesnt look it, It was a huge effort to make a detail item like this, but well worth it in making the completely hidden fans look very neat and tidy.

Since I was going to be powering the fans using an AC to DC 12v converter, a world of possibilities opened when it came to additional accessories I could use to make the desk as cool (not temperature in this case) as possible. I decided that no good computer project can be completed without the use of some nerdy mood lighting. Besides, if I removed the panel from the desk, I would need light to be able to work on the computer, right? So I wired up two blue cold cathode tubes to light the interior compartment of the computer cabinet.

One evening, after weeks of waiting, I wired everything up and tested out the fans and lights. IT WAS AWESOME!

No joke, the desk looked like it was something out of Tron (one of my favorite childhood movies). Here it is with the normal lights on.

One item of note: Though cool looking, blue lights are not very practical to light your work area, and I still need to use a small flashlight. It's plenty of light, you just can't differentiate colors of wires or really tell what you're doing. But hey, you look cool fumbling around.

The final item I wired up in this removable panel compartment was a pressure sensitive switch that turns the blue light on only when the side panel of the desk is removed, but shuts them off when the panel is replaced. Makes sense, right? Why would I need the lights on when the desk’s side panel is closed?

During desk construction we also placed the necessary network cabling next to the outlet that sits in the compartment beneath the bottom shelf and drilled several large holes in the shelves to allow wires to pass from compartment to compartment. Ultimately everything works its way down to an area beneath the bottom shelf that is only accessible when the panel is off of the side of the desk. This area is where the network and power for the PC come from and also where the external hard drive lives. It’s a wonderfully convenient place for it and keeps the rest of the cabinet from being completely cluttered.

In addition to the holes in each shelf in the left cabinet, I knew we would have quite a few wires running through various parts of the desk. Whether we’re talking about the wires to the speakers, monitors, a USB hub, keyboard and mouse receivers, or anything else that the computer had to direct connect to, those wires needed to somehow get from their destination back to the computer in the desk. To accommodate this I cut several hidden holes in the various desk cabinets.

These holes allow the wires to run from location to location, only appearing where absolutely necessary. If there’s one thing I hate it’s exposed wires running all over the place when they could be concealed. This hatred for wires especially goes for the lower portions of desks where the wires are often draping down haphazardly into your foot area. You can see it in the upper right of the computer compartment.

To solve this wire issue I opted to install a ledge support that would act as a wire raceway. The support would run between the left cabinet and right cabinet and would allow any wires to run from the PC, through the holes, and across the shelf without hanging down in the back of the desk. You can see it at the top of this photo. Oh, and the weird stain on the bottom of the drawer, that's actually where some stain seeped through from inside the desk. Oh well.

With all of the wires run, fans connected, and computer equipment installed, the desk still looked as neat and tidy as it did before we put anything in place. Mission accomplished.

But wait, I still have three more desk features I want to mention.

The first are my wireless headphones. When I’m up super late and working on the blog and watching episodes of The Office or Walking Dead, I don’t want to have my computer speakers turned up because Wendy is usually sleeping in our bedroom. Instead I use a pair of Seinheiser wireless headphones with charging base. I wanted to have easy access to them without having them sit out on the desk, but they also needed to connect to the computer. My solution? I wired up the base to the computer and then put a few screws under the desk to mount the base to. Now the headphones are neatly tucked under the desk and charged for when I need them. All I need to do it grab them and put them on and I’m listening wirelessly to whatever is on my computer.

The second hidden gem is what I did inside of the main desk drawer. We knew we wanted to be able to charge devices (like phones or cameras) but didn’t want chargers all over the place. We also have a need for various USB devices that are easily accessible, like card readers or anything else. Again, rather than have this stuff all sitting on the top of the desk or in a hard to reach area, I decided on something a little bit cool.

I figured I could build a plug into the back of the desk drawer. I built a small wooden box that could house a gang box, cut a small hole in the rear of the drawer, and attached the box to the rear of the drawer.

I then installed a duplex outlet in the hole and connected the end of a short extension cord to it. We were able to run that cord to an outlet in another part of the desk and, BAM, we have a desk drawer with power. We ran a USB wire from this part of the desk over to the computer and we were in business. Now we can charge our cell phones, camera battery, hook up devices for connection to the computer so I can program them, and even house my card reader so I can connect to VPN without needed to have the stuff sitting on the desk. 

Unfortunately, this drawer has gotten a little messy over time. Here’s more recent shot of the drawer to show how what it holds today. Let's go ahead and add this to the list of things that needs to get organized up on our "clean every cabinet and drawer" resolution for 2012.

And finally, a more recent addition to the desk comes in the form of more lighting. When I built the desk, LED lighting was rather new and still somewhat expensive. Recently, after one of the desk fans started to buzz and needed to be replaced, I started browsing around a PC mod accessory site and found some inexpensive LED lighting tape. I decided to buy some and give it a shot. Here's a shot of the tape and how it is installed (with bad lighting and poor photography skills highlighted).

The LED tape is flexible, super easy to work with, and is applied using some double sided tape. I was able to hook it up to the existing wiring for the other lighting and had additional blue desk under-glow in just a couple of minutes.

Really, who doesn’t need blue mood lighting under-glow in their custom antique inspired cherry desk? If you ask me, I’d say “Nobody!”

There you have it, the “Pimp My Ride” of DIY desks executed to the fullest. By the way, Wendy wants me to point out that our "desk underglow" is only permitted when I'm doing work on the computer or I'm nerding out in my office alone. Underglow is not the approved lighting of choice for day-to-day operations or when guests are present. <sigh> I just wish she understood how cool this is.

What do you think? Is the end result of my efforts thoroughly overkill and sufficiently cool? Did I miss anything obvious that I absolutely should have included? I’ve already thought about doing integrated water cooling for the computer so I don’t need to hear fans. Any other ideas are welcomed. 

If you liked this entry, be sure to check out our whole collection of desk building posts that recaps the adventure from concept to functional office furniture. 

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Doesn't it look so bare and lonely?

We had gone to such great lengths to make the various desk components work seamlessly with each other, hiding any fasteners and concealing any non-wood components. Everything had gone well but I was starting to turn into my normal neurotic self about how I would build the shelves. We had installed a single downlight above the shelf area, and I was concerned that solid wood shelves would block the downlight after the first shelf, leaving all but the top shelf totally in the dark.

We started playing around with the idea of doing tempered glass shelves instead of wood. We felt like a transparent shelf might work best by allowing the light to pass through, but it might look too contemporary against the backdrop of the exposed brick and the desk that I had built to mimic an 1850’s antique bookcase. We had worked too hard for the look we had achieved just to throw it away on the shelves.

So the more we talked, we came up with a hybrid approach to our dilemma. We figured we could build wood frames with tempered glass inlays. This would allow the shelves to look like they are wood at first glance, but the inlays would allow the light to pass through from the top on down to the bottom. It was the best of both worlds so we decided to go for it.

With the shelf decision made I turned my neurotic attention to also start worrying a lot about the method I would use to support the shelves. I had used a shelf support jig to drill peg holes in the bottom cabinet, but I felt like that was too modern of a solution for the upper portion of the desk. Instead I referred to the cabinet I was mimicking for my inspiration.

The antique bookcase uses a pretty classic method for shelf supports. Pieces of wood with triangle notches cut out at regular intervals are mounted in each corner, and movable supports sit beneath on either side of the shelves supported by the notches. It kind of looks like a saw tooth support when done. This seemed the best approach for our desk as well, so with the approach decided I could focus on building and installing the shelves.

The first step was to order the glass that would act as the inlays for the shelves. As it turns out, tempered glass isn’t the easiest thing to order online. Any custom sizes are expensive, and shipping is always a risk (since it’s glass). We used a company called Wilson Glass for our bathroom shower doors and they were great to work with. I went on their website to look into ordering glass from them for our shelves and realized they offered some standard size glass at very reasonable prices (about $25 per shelf plus shipping). We ordered four pieces in the smaller size that would work for our shelves and waited to receive them so we could properly size the shelves.

While we waited for the glass to arrive I started to work on the supports. For this component I ripped a few pieces of cherry down to 3/8” thick pieces of wood. I then cut the saw-toothed notches that would act as supports, and the cross pieces that would sit in those notches to support the shelf ends. It was also important to cut all of these pieces before building the shelves so that we would know exactly where to cut each shelf in the corners to accomodate the supports.

No sooner than we had finished up the supports, the glass arrived. I mean, it came within something like 45 minutes of when I stepped back and said “ok, the supports are done.” When the glass arrived we were able to take accurate measurements so that we could make the shelves with the perfect size cutouts for the inlays.

As I mentioned, I had this obsession with using as few fasteners as possible on the whole desk, and trying to hide the ones we had to use. The shelves were no different, so I decided to use a mortise and tenon approach to building the frames. Because of the notches, the inlays, and the mortise and tenon construction, the joints actually looked pretty complicated, but they all went together quite nicely.

In the photo you can see the rabbets for the glass inlay, the notch at the top to make room for the support, and the mortise and tenon in the corner.

After cutting everything and putting them together with a bit of glue, I clamped it all up in the basement and let them dry.

A complete sanding, some pre-stain treatment, a couple of coats of stain and polyurethane, and we had shelves and supports and were ready to go. You can see the supports in the top of the following photo.

We laid the glass into the shelves and positioned the supports where they needed to go and placed the shelves in their locations.

We put a few of our favorite photos and keepsake items in place, like a wedding photo, an old baseball glove, some souvenirs from vacations, and a few of my favorite baseballs I've caught at games over the years (like this one). We were finally able to stop and appreciate what we had accomplished.

On a side note, how do you like my desktop wallpaper? I took a photo of the wall then positioned it perfectly. I think I spent like an hour getting it just right and then Wendy walked in and said the monitor was too far to the left and moved it right...go figure.

Our desk had gone from a rough sketch on a couple pieces of paper to what you see in the photos with only a few headaches along the way.

To this day I’m still quite proud of what we accomplished with this desk. It was the first “real” piece of furniture I attempted with woodworking. I used a lot of techniques and approaches that were otherwise foreign to me, but with a little bit of patience the end result was almost exactly what we had envisioned when we first started talking about how to build the desk. Here's one more photo with the wide angle lens to get the whole desk in the shot. It distorts it a bit, but with such a small room it's the only way to do it.

Oh, and did I forget to mention how I built the desk to incorporate and hide all of my computer and electronics gear? No? Okay, I guess I’ll have to do that in one more post. But trust me, it’s worth its own post.

What do you think of the shelves? I know, they’re just shelves, so I’m not sure they deserved their own blog post, but I think I put as much thought into the construction of the shelves as I did with just about any other single item of the desk, and that’s saying a lot. Would you have gone to the extent I did, or would you have just used normal glass shelves with pin supports? Let me know.

If you liked this entry, be sure to check out our whole collection of desk building posts that recaps the adventure from concept to functional office furniture. 

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However, functional and complete are two very different things. We still had the whole second piece of the drawing to go. The upper cabinets, down lighting, and transparent shelves were all very necessary elements to achieve a truly completed project.

To this point we had built the desk in sections and installed, assembled, and stained them in place. This had worked well for the lower portion, but the construction of the upper portion meant it all had to be pieced together in place and without fasteners, taken apart, sanded and stained outside of the small office and then pieced back together in place. The final step would then be to construct the face frame as one element and install that as the final piece to the unit. In theory, this would all be a pretty straight forward process, but I knew it would end up far more difficult than it should have been.

I started by using several sheets of the cherry plywood to construct the box of the structure. Each piece had to be scribed to the irregular profile of the exposed brick wall using the jigsaw. This is actually the very reason I purchased the really good jigsaw we have. I knew my old jigsaw would have completely splintered the plywood, and there was no way I was going to let that happen if I could prevent it. (Note the lack of the desktop, I decided to remove it during this phase so I wouldn't damage it.)

I used the same basic approach to construction of this upper section as I did the lower cabinets. The pieces were all joined using dados, glue, and wood screws to create a good and solidly constructed unit. As with every other piece in this project, I think I test fit the whole thing about 4,000 times.

There were two oddities I had to accommodate with this build. The first is the flexible ductwork that brings heat and AC to the guest bedroom. It actually comes out of the ceiling in the office, then turns toward the guest room vent. I absolutely hate when ductwork in old houses is poorly installed and obviously boxed in, so this gave us a unique opportunity to overcome this unsightly aspect of HVAC by integrating the ductwork in the construction of the desk. So I cut a hole in the top and rear of the upper left cabinet compartment to allow the duct work to exist in a completely concealed environment. With the way we configured the desk, it barely even impacted our storage.

The second consideration was for the air gap necessary to accommodate a pair of halogen puck lights. The lights I found were ultra low profile lights that are designed to be recessed. But being halogen lights, they do have a tendency to run hot, so there needed to be a minimum 1.5" space to be mounted in. These lights are also low voltage lights that come with a transformer. I decided to use this gap to conceal the transformer. You can see the gap I'm talking about between the upper storage area and the lower open area.

Since we are concealing electronics in this opening I didn't want to build it as a permanently enclosed space in the event we needed to service the lights or wanted to later replace the lights with an LED model. As a result the bottoms of the upper cabinets have thumb holes and are removable. They're sort of like trap doors.

I left the backs of the storage area open to the brick wall. I figured there was no sense in losing a few inches of storage room to give a back to something you'd never see once the doors are installed.

The cabinet box had worked out great thus far so I turned my attention to the cherry face frame. I built the face frame as a single piece that I could attach as one element to the upper section once it was fully in place. I figured this would allow me to secure all of the joints and sand them smooth prior to install. It would also allow me to get a true sense of the walls (not perfectly smooth), and where I had to make a few small accommodations for a tight fit.

Once everything was exactly where I needed it, I marked biscuit locations on the face frame and cabinet box that would make for an "easy" assembly.

Everything was looking great, so I turned my attention to the upper doors and crown molding of the upper section. The doors were actually pretty easy. I used the same approach I had used for the lower section and also mimicked the size of the lower storage areas to ensure symmetry between all of the doors.

For the crown detail, we looked to our original inspiration piece, our antique book cabinet, which sits on the wall opposite the new desk.

I took the profile of the cabinet's crown element and determined the necessary cover and round over router bits I would need to replicate it. I was able to accomplish it with two pieces of wood. I have to pat myself on the back a bit here. The crown detail I created is almost a perfect match to the one on our inspiration piece. It's details like this that really make the difference in these completely custom projects, so I'm quite glad I took the time to work on this detail that will probably go unnoticed by 99.9% of the people who would ever see our desk.

After the doors and crown were all wrapped up we disassembled the whole thing and started the long and messy process of staining. We figured it was far easier to stain everything in our makeshift workspace, aka the guest bedroom, than to try to stain in place and undoubtedly get it all over the walls, floor, and probably ceiling of the space we had just finished. We were able to knock the whole thing out in a couple of days.

After staining was complete we did a little test fit and installed all of the wiring necessary for the recessed lights. We were truly on a roll. The project's finish line was in sight and there was nothing standing in our way...right?

While everything had gone smoothly through the build and stain process, we came to the point in the project where we hit our obligatory road bump. Whenever I've used the biscuit joiner to marry two items, I've been able to use clamps to securely squeeze the pieces together and allow any glue to set. Unfortunately we couldn't do this with the face of the upper section of the desk because the whole thing fit so tightly between the walls that we couldn't fit the clamp behind it. In retrospect I should have used a crankable strap type thing to cinch it all together, but I didn't properly think through the process before I started. 

Instead I glued up the biscuits and applied the face frame and was shocked when it wouldn't totally close all of the gaps. The left and right sides looked good, but the middle support and upper section was horrible. There was at least a 1/2" gap between the face frame and the cabinet, and I started to panic. I didn't know what to do! I had glued it up, and I needed to get the thing together before the glue set but I was at a loss. Then I took a total shot in the dark. I grabbed a long piece of oak from the basement, padded either end, propped it up between the wall (on a stud) and the desk, and I hung (like I was doing a pull up) on the piece of wood to more or less jam the two pieces together.

Quite honestly, I had thoughts of Han Solo, Chewie, Leia, and Luke in the trash compactor of the Death Star (Star Wars reference for all my fellow nerds out there). It was a moment of panic.

Photo Credit: 20th Century Fox

I was sweating, swearing, fuming, and stomping around the house, but amazingly, my trick worked out. I was able to force it together enough that it looked good. It may not have been absolutely perfect, but it was close enough for me. What a relief. Wendy still makes fun of me for my freak out on this one. 

After letting our Death Star trash compactor support sit for a few hours, the glue had dried enough on the biscuits to remove it. The stain needed a small bit of touch up, but it looked pretty decent. I was able to pop the lights into the holes I had pre drilled, then I laid the base of the cabinets into place and we were in business.

I still had to build the shelves for the right part of the desk, but the desk as a whole was largely complete. The final step was the complete and utter geekification of the desk, but I'll cover that in a future post.

What do you think of the end result thus far in my tale of desk building? To say I was happy with how it was turning out is a complete understatement. I had so much anxiety going into the construction of this project, and so little experience, but it had all fallen into place with only minor speed bumps along the way.

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I know that in the past I've mentioned a certain trait I tend to possess. When I hit a point in a project that I don't feel particularly sure or comfortable with, I obsess. Really, I absolutely obsess about the minor and major details of the project, how it will work, if I'm doing it the right way, the ramifications if I do it wrong, and generally dread the idea of working on the project, crippled by my own obsessive tendencies. Is that crazy and honest enough for you? This ugly flaw really came out at this stage of the game as the desktop was one of those points. In retrospect, I really don't know why, but you couldn't have convinced me otherwise when I was in the middle of it. So instead we just kept staining and ignored it for a while.

We decided that we wanted the desktop to be solid pieces of cherry, not the plywood we had used on the interior portions of the cabinets. Our thought was that if we ever nicked, gouged, or scratched the surface deep enough, we wanted it to add character to the desk after refinishing, and not need to be repaired because it showed the core of the plywood. But the problem with the plan wa that our desk top was 24" deep in places, and the widest stock cherry we could get was just 12".

The other thing we wanted to do was to add a nice finish front profile to the desk to give the illusion of a much thicker desk top than standard stock 3/4" lumber provided. We wanted the front edge of the desk to make the whole thing appear far more substantial.

Those were our grand plans, but I didn't know exactly how I was going to accomplish this, so I obsessed. Luckily, I obsessed long enough to determine the best way to proceed, or at least I can make that excuse now.

The first step was to turn two 12" pieces of stock cherry into one large piece of 24" desk top for the project. I decided to purchase a biscuit joiner to marry the two pieces of 12" stock lumber. I figured I could do the old pocket hole and screw trick on the underside, but that was sort of a cheap and cheating way to do this. Besides, i had to follow my rule about one new tool purchase for each major project, this and the rest of the desk construction was a perfect opportunity to get the biscuit jointer I had been needing and wanting for some time.

By the time we got to actual desk top construction, I had already used the jointer for some of the face frame construction on the lower cabinets, so I was confident it would work. I'd say it turned out nicely.

The next major issue was how to thicken and decorate the front edge of the desk top. To tackle this I started with a piece of 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" cherry. The plan was to route the profile using several router bits and steps of cutting to give us a significant and decorative edge banding piece.

I then needed to attach this piece of cherry to the front of the desk top. Since the top of the edge piece way too thin to use even a '0' biscuit on without cutting through the front, I did opt to use the pocket hole screws on this. Placing two screws every foot we were able to securely fasten and glue the decorative piece to the 24" table top to give us a large and solid piece for our desk top. Here's a photo of the underside of the top portion, complete with pocket holes and glue drips.

The final steps were to cut the fully assembled piece to size for the location, scribe and cut out the notch for the chimney, cut the necessary hole for any cabling (like power and video for the monitor or speakers) and carefully test fit it over and over. Measure twice and cut once? Try measure 400 times and cut like your life depended on it as there was no way I was messing up this piece. I had worked too long.

The solid desk top piece I had obsessed about was not horribly difficult, but it was time consuming. With its completion we just had to sand it all smooth and stain it with the same combination as the lower portion of the desk. Easy peasy, right? (Insert record scraaaasastttttccchhhhh sound effect here!)

I don't have any photos of what transpired, primarily because I was beside myself with frustration and was nearly destroyed. We stained the desk top we had worked so hard to assemble and felt like everything was going great, but it was far from it. Apparently, the new can of stain we had purchased had sat so long in the store that much of it had settled near the bottom, and our shaking/stirring hadn't resolved this sediment issue. The end result was a desk top that was a significantly more red in hue than the rest of the desk.

We were distraught to say the least. After working so hard, the jerk hole stain had derailed us on one of the final steps. We asked friend after friend if the color was too different, too red, just plain horrible, etc. We're lucky to have some very honest friends as they were able to tell us that it did in fact look bad.

Gladly this was stain, and I had a lot of sanding pads and a random orbit sander. After a little bit of swearing, a sprinkle of whining, and a smidge of pouting, and some stomping around for good measure, I put in a couple of hours of sanding (my over agitated hands paid the price for that) to bring the desk top back to a piece of wood just waiting for its next coat of stain. I think it only took a few hours to get it to where it needed to be again. Ugh.

This time the stain process went far better. I'll tell you on thing for sure, there was no way the can of stain was going to have anything unmixed in the bottom. No way, no how!

We probably could have left it the different color and only a few people would have really noticed, but it was one of those things I would stare at and hate every day. I'm very glad we took the time to correct the issue and to be sure it looked as good as it could. The end result was a deep and rich solid wood desktop that fit perfectly with place. After years using a self assembly particle board desk with fake wood veneer, our dream of a desk was finally coming true.

We weren't done by any means. Remember, we drew a top half plan for the desk on another sheet of paper. Besides, do you see that list in the photo above? Yeah, it had all of the items that remained and I still had to build the upper cabinets, come up with some shelves on the right, and figure out a good way to light the whole thing. But the base was finished, and we were thrilled with the results.

So what do you think of the base? Does it looks like a first attempt at furniture building? Do you think the desk works well in the space? Stay tuned as I'll cover the construction of the upper cabinets in a future post. 

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Today we'll take a step back in time to 2007-2008 to cover part one of an undetermined number of posts about our desk. The whole thing took us about six months to build, start to finish, but there was a lot of stopping and starting during that period. What else is new? 

To be honest, this project is probably one of my most favorite projects that we've taken on. Being an amateur woodworker that had never attempted to build any actual furniture or cabinetry, it was an ambitious undertaking with a very *very* steep learning curve. We didn't have any plans or specs, just an empty space in an newly finished room that needed a desk in order for it to become our home office. 

Sure, the whole process to get to a point where we actually needed a desk was a journey all its own, but that's a different story for a different day. These posts are just about the desk construction.

A year or so before beginning this project, we bought an antique 1850's bookcase that we absolutely love. We love the look, the color, and the feel. We knew this piece would end up in it's permanent place in our small home office, so we decided to use it as inspiration for our custom desk.  

We started with a bit of a blank canvas, sketched out an idea of what we wanted the desk to look like (using two small pieces of paper), and got to work. Here's our very rough jumping off point. I felt this was more than sufficient to give me a start down my very unscientific path.

The whole thing started innocently enough with material selection. Given the deep and rich redish brown color of the bookcase, we decided that a solid cherry desk front and desktop with cherry plywood for the cabinet interiors would give us the deep and rich color we were looking for. I searched around and found a great online mill that would supply the cherry we needed in S4S at a reasonable price. The mill is called Baird Brothers, located near Canton, Ohio, and I've used them on several occasions since.

After placing the order for the wood I anxiously awaited for it to arrive. As much as I would have preferred to buy it locally, I just can't seem to find good pricing on good quality lumber at local mills. If anyone knows of a good one, let me know.

When the lumber arrived I immediately got to work. Using the table saw, dado blade, and miter saw, I started to assemble the carcases for the two lower side cabinets. The floor was out of level left to right and front to back, so I really had my scribing work cut out for me to make it sit level, plumb, and solidly on the floor. Look at how innocently the whole thing started.

If you notice, there is an outlet, network, and television box on the floor. The goal from the start was to make this a high tech desk that could easily house a computer and all related equipment with no significant visible wires. I wanted it to look like a classic and fine piece of furniture, but to also add a hidden "wow" factor.

I was well on my way using basic box construction with dados. I don't think I've ever checked for level and plumb as many times as I had to with the base of this desk. I knew how important it was to get it all squared, otherwise the whole thing would be off.

After a few short days of work the whole thing was starting to take shape. We kept checking how it would feel with a chair in place, where the front of the desk would sit, how it would work with the old chimney, and how it would fit with the baseboard cut we had left in anticipation of the desk. We even worked the back right corner of the right cabinet into the little nook between the wall and the chimney, there's a rule in this house that we waste no space. We also had frequent inspections from Mel. He always wanted to make sure we're doing top notch work.

The cabinet interiors were all plywood, but I wanted to use the solid cherry for all of the pieces you would see from the outside of the desk. I started to assemble all of the various external pieces and test fit them with the cabinet boxes. It seemed like the basement was full of clamps, panels, and saw dust for months on end. 

After a little bit of work, the lower cabinets and boxes were taking shape. I also assembled the panel doors using solid cherry and my ogee rail and stile router bits.

Notice the left cabinet with its removable side panel? Since the computer is going in there I wanted to make sure I would have easy access to the back and side of it. I've always hated having to pull a computer out of its location to do any work on it. This was my solution to that. I also wanted to make sure the computer could remain cool in this tight space, so I cut a ventilation hole to run some exhaust fans, as well as a hole to run the hidden wires. I even cut a custom fan attachment and cover to make it all look finished and professional.

Embracing my true nerd fashion, I decided to wire the fans into the setup. Nothing says overkill like electronics built into desks.

In typical "cart before the horse" Old Town Home fashion, my stainmaster, Wendy, started testing out various colors that would work well. I say cart before the horse because we probably should have at least finished building the lower part of the desk before we started staining, but that's not how we roll.

Once Wendy had decided on a good stain color we got to staining the desk's interior. We opted to use a mix of Minwax Jacobean and Mahogany stain, applied in multiple coats. We decided to test it out on the interior of the right cabinet, and I'm very glad we tried it out on the interior. It was splotchy, and I mean super splotchy. This was something we weren't aware of or remotely expecting, but were able to resolve with a little Internet research and some stain pre-treatment. 

Wendy says to ignore her bed head that looks a little like Donald Trump's hair.

The final piece of the lower section of the desk was the assembly of the center drawer. I decided to go with classic dovetail joinery for the drawer, and it actually turned out pretty great for my first shot at it. I also had to work in a little notch in the rear of the drawer to allow for the exhaust fans to work properly.

I feel pretty fortunate that all of my first time attempts on this project were actually turning out pretty well. Every night I would stop by the desk and look at it to figure out the next steps, and to enjoy what it was becoming. I was like a proud papa.

I also went to great lengths to hide all of the screws and fasteners use in the assembly. We used biscuits when connecting face frames to the cabinet bodies, and only placed screws in locations where they wouldn't be seen (like rear or side connections). It took a lot of planning, but it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. The end result of a largely finished desk bottom was quickly taking shape, and we both were loving the direction we were headed. 

If we had it to do the project over again I would probably use an aniline dye rather than standard oil stain. I may have also used a 50/50 mix of boiled linseed oil and turpentine, but this was long before I was aware of such things.

What do you think, not too shabby for my first real attempt at making any sort of furniture? I'm just sad that if we ever move this serious labor of love will end up staying in the house. No matter what, I'll end up leaving my first ever furniture piece behind. 

We'll be talking about this project over the coming weeks and covering the various ups and downs, ins and outs, successes and utter failures, and other experiences along the way, we've got our fair share of each. 

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