Project Information
What to make with 3 - 4×8 sheets of rift oak plywood, 2 left over white melamine drawer cabinets,
2 left over 30×16 dovetailed maple drawers and 2 metal file cabinets?
.
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As a cabinet maker, my office was always an embarrassment to me.
For the last 15 years, we used an ugly white metal and Formica L shaped office desk with chrome legs that we inherited from my wife's old office. I mean butt ugly.
Can't complain, I know. It was free and we needed a desk.
I have a good friend who is a union carpenter and his job is to assemble office partitions and set up desks in downtown Chicago.
When he saw the old desk he laughed at it and said: "Dude! We throw ******************** better than that out in the dumpster everyday. Let me set you up with a nicer one."
But I said: "No, no……....I'm going to make one."
He said: "Yea right, with all your projects?......I won't hold my breath."
I knew if I had just replaced it with another better looking wood grained Formica metal desk that it would mean that I was giving up on my "mission". My mind was set. The ugly white desk stays.
It will become a daily, ugly reminder of that mission to build a proper desk. Nothing too elaborate, practical, modular, and adjustable to be 2 desks if needed…... Built by me.
15 years later.
We decided to add oak flooring throughout the house and have them sanded and finished.
This meant we had to empty the house of everything, including the much loved white desk.
4 days later, when we brought everything back in the house, we looked at the desk and we just couldn't bring it back in. So, we sat it on the side of the driveway and within minutes, a nice young family pulled up with a minivan full of kids and I helped them load it up.
I'm gonna miss that old desk.
sorry, no picture of the beloved white desk. After we threw it out, we used a piece of plywood on top of two file cabinets while waiting for new oak desk that was being built at that very moment…. Almost done!
The short white drawer cabinet above is the base for my drawing table. I wrapped it in rift oak panels,
created a toe kick space and mounted new solid oak drawer fronts and hardware.
I cut the legs off the metal drawing board and mounted them on 5/4×6×21" oak platforms.
There's only three drawers. The top two drawer fronts are grooved to look like four architect's blueprint drawers.
very cool.
.
.
Update: TV was lowered to swivel stand on top of desk - at eye level. We were getting a sore neck looking up at the TV from computer screen when it was mounted on the wall. I didn't like the cords hanging down anyway. Much better. We also moved the mirror to this spot and added more framed antique plane posters.
And the closet is now more of a display area for my rapidly growing plane collection.
2 left over 30×16 dovetailed maple drawers and 2 metal file cabinets?
.
.
As a cabinet maker, my office was always an embarrassment to me.
For the last 15 years, we used an ugly white metal and Formica L shaped office desk with chrome legs that we inherited from my wife's old office. I mean butt ugly.
Can't complain, I know. It was free and we needed a desk.
I have a good friend who is a union carpenter and his job is to assemble office partitions and set up desks in downtown Chicago.
When he saw the old desk he laughed at it and said: "Dude! We throw ******************** better than that out in the dumpster everyday. Let me set you up with a nicer one."
But I said: "No, no……....I'm going to make one."
He said: "Yea right, with all your projects?......I won't hold my breath."
I knew if I had just replaced it with another better looking wood grained Formica metal desk that it would mean that I was giving up on my "mission". My mind was set. The ugly white desk stays.
It will become a daily, ugly reminder of that mission to build a proper desk. Nothing too elaborate, practical, modular, and adjustable to be 2 desks if needed…... Built by me.
15 years later.
We decided to add oak flooring throughout the house and have them sanded and finished.
This meant we had to empty the house of everything, including the much loved white desk.
4 days later, when we brought everything back in the house, we looked at the desk and we just couldn't bring it back in. So, we sat it on the side of the driveway and within minutes, a nice young family pulled up with a minivan full of kids and I helped them load it up.
I'm gonna miss that old desk.
sorry, no picture of the beloved white desk. After we threw it out, we used a piece of plywood on top of two file cabinets while waiting for new oak desk that was being built at that very moment…. Almost done!
The short white drawer cabinet above is the base for my drawing table. I wrapped it in rift oak panels,
created a toe kick space and mounted new solid oak drawer fronts and hardware.
I cut the legs off the metal drawing board and mounted them on 5/4×6×21" oak platforms.
There's only three drawers. The top two drawer fronts are grooved to look like four architect's blueprint drawers.
very cool.
.
.
Update: TV was lowered to swivel stand on top of desk - at eye level. We were getting a sore neck looking up at the TV from computer screen when it was mounted on the wall. I didn't like the cords hanging down anyway. Much better. We also moved the mirror to this spot and added more framed antique plane posters.
And the closet is now more of a display area for my rapidly growing plane collection.