Joe is moving out of the dorms and into an apartment. He needed a desk but wanted something different, larger than was in his bedroom. So we drew up some plans. He wanted L-shaped for more desktop area.
He also wanted lots of shelves.
Couple photos missing here. We visited the furniture store to see what we liked. An L-shaped desk with drawers and not upper shelves was $1200+. Screw that. Then we took a trip to Wassankari to find some reclaimed doors for desktops. These monsters were 1 3/4" thick particle board with 1/8" plywood walnut veneer on two sides. Plenty heavy. We used shelves to provide storage and support the ends and a funky 3-leg L-shaped thingy to support the joint. Here the doors are cut to size, but the hemlock edges to cover the open particle board have not yet been installed. Nor have the patches to fill the door hinge cut outs.
Here's the main shelf with a cut out for the computer monitor. Artistic facia is installed to cover the birch plywood edges.
The side shelf goes next to the previous shelf. Just needs to be finished. Joe chose walnut stain. Dark, but it looks good.
Stained desk with one coat of varnish set up with unfinished upper shelves to see if it all fits. Close enough.
And here it is installed in the apartment. Lucky we looked at the floor plan to see where the window was when we drew the plans. Fits nicely with just enough room for the bed on the right. Plus it's modular. The whole thing disassembles to 7 parts with 19 screws.
Less than $300 in materials and 3 weeks of easy work. Never spent more than an hour or two at one time. Plus Joe did most of the work, learning a critical skill that a young (poor) person needs to know.
