Background

My friend had been using the same desk to work from home since the pandemic started, and besides being too tall, it lacked proper storage and was a bit of an eyesore as well. Their printer was relegated to sitting on top of some storage bins that were operating as filing cabinets. In short, they were in need of a major home office upgrade!

Getting to Work

We worked together to come up with a design that would satisfy all of their storage and filing needs, which included flip-top cabinet boxes that had outlets for hiding that pesky printer as well as other electronics, as well as plenty of drawer space. They also wanted two floating shelves with LED lighting, as well as a nook above the cabinets for seasonal displays. After picking out the cabinet color, hardware finish and desktop grain preference, I ordered my materials and got started. The cabinet carcasses were constructed using 3/4" poplar plywood, which is a great choice for painted cabinets rather than stained. The doors were made from 1x4 poplar for the stiles & rails, with 1/4" sanded plywood used for the panels. Everything was joined together with wood glue and pocket screws before being sanded, painted + finished.

The drawer boxes are assembled from dimensional poplar and finger-jointed, something I had not previously attempted which meant I had to build a jig for my router table in order to make all those repeated cuts - a fun challenge that resulted in beautiful and strong drawer boxes. The desktop was made from 10' 2x10 Hard Maple boards, which I milled down and joined with biscuits and pocket screws. The desktop and drawer boxes were finished with a few coats of Danish Oil.

I had to wait to build the floating shelves until after I had installed the lower cabinets and desktop due to the limited space in my workshop. The two shelves are made from 3/4" Maple plywood, with strips of 1/2" plywood between them to create a 2" thick shelf. I used a plunge router to cut the channels for the LED strips, then applied edge banding and finished them with a few coats of the same Danish Oil. The upper 'nook' that sits on top of the cabinets was also made from 3/4" poplar plywood, but in order to make it pop a bit we added vertical shiplap to the backwall and an additional LED strip at the top, which is hidden by the crown moulding.

The installation went rather smoothly thanks to their mercifully square walls and floors which meant minimum shimming and leveling. The most nerve-wracking part was cutting out the three rectangular holes for the outlets, which had to be done on-site to the finished cabinets. Fortunately everything went smoothly - the only hiccup was when the LED strips had to be fully re-wired after their initial install due to issues with the LED driver. Not a fun setback but these things happen! 

The Result

This project was super challenging but a lot of fun to work on and very satisfying to complete. The amount of work was more than I had anticipated - or perhaps more than I could properly visualize - but that forced me to come up with some creative solutions and push myself to stay positive (and on schedule!). The door and drawer box construction was tedious at first, but seeing them softly close for the first time was very rewarding, as was learning the skillset along the way. I was very happy to hear my friends were thrilled with the results and had already been receiving compliments on their new office by the time I checked in with them a few days later. Another very fun build in the books!