I don’t build things often but when my friend said she needed a desk for her new apartment I jumped at the opportunity to use my dads work shop and my limited but eager skill set to make a solid piece of furniture for her new place.
She told me she wanted a table-desk and it needed to have a drawer and other than that it was completely up to me. She also told me she was going to paint it white which is why I went with plywood (I’m pretty sure she still hasn’t painted it). It would look really good in white, Sasha. Paint it. Anyway, I designed a table desk with a skirt that has a hidden pull out pencil drawer that sits flush in the skirt. I started with just a sheet of plywood and an old piece of pine trim from the scraps in the shop. My dad had just “perfected” his dove tail jig so I used some hardwood scraps and the dove tail jointer to make the drawer. The legs are glued up pieces of plywood and thin pieces of pine that I sudo veneered the exposed ply sides with. The top is plywood as well that I framed with a 1/4″ thick piece of pine. My thought was that I wanted to not have any of the ply exposed so that it would be durable against bumps and wear on the edges. All in all I think it came out pretty nice and its definitely a really sturdy desk. Pictures were taken with an iPhone in a very dim garage.
MICHAEL MONGIN 