DIY Computer Desk (Not a case desk but still BA)

[bmccarthy]

Hey guys, this is the start of my DIY desk build guide. I've been itching to get some feedback as I'm a little over half way through the project now. Also, I have had people ask me to start posting about it so they can see the progress, so I figured I'd make this my home since Linus was making one as well! Here we go.

 

Ok, so my budget for this desk was $500, because I wanted a really nice countertop to go on this. Something I could use pretty much forever. But if you guys want to know how to make it cheaper, it's easy to shave some cost on this project. For example, making shelves is cheaper than making drawers. But I'll get to that later.

 

A little about me. I have built cabinets in the past before college. Something I miss to a degree. It is very satisfying to do woodwork. My wife and I just got married and bought a house pretty much at the same time. And so for the first time, I have a space of my own that I can actually do something with. With my previous experience building cabinets, I knew I wanted to build this desk.

 

Items Needed

Materials used so far: (Sorry I work in Imperial Units for cabinets as most homes are also designed and built with the same)

 

• 1 x MDF 3/4" x 4' x 8' Sheet | 31.95
• 2 X 3/4" x 4' x 8' Pine Plywood | 28.18 each
• 1 x 1/4" x 4' x 8' Sande Plywood | 19.92
• 4 x Sets Soft Close Drawer Slides 22" | 18.98 each
• 4 x Drawer Pulls | $5 each
• Titebond wood glue | $6.97
• Drywall screws 2" and 1 1/4" | $8
• 1" Pocket hole screws | $4
• Maple Butcher block Counter-top 74" x 42" x 1 1/2" | $219
• 1 Gal Gloss Paint | $35

So far total project cost is: $495

 

Tools used:

• Hammer
• Impact Drill (a standard drill will be fine, just be careful not to over torque anything)
• Standard Drill
• Speed Square
• Framing square (if you have one, you can get by without it)
• Combination Square (also can get by without, but man it'll make your life easier)
• Pocket Hole Jig
• Trigger Clamps
• Skill Saw (circular saw) with fine (finish) blade
• skill saw track guide
• table saw (you can get away with just the skill saw, but this will save you a lot of time and headache of making sure your pieces are square)
• nail gun and air compressor (mainly used for tacking when needed, however because of how I did my face frame I had to use it for that)
• nice level work area / bench

 

The Design

 

This room will function as daily use, work, and theater modes. So the space needs to be functional as well has beautiful.

 

Here you can see the desk is made up of 4 main components. The counter-top will be a dark ebony and the cabinets will be gloss white, with a deep blue wall.

 

1. Left Cabinet | Top drawer with internal slide drawer, Bottom drawer file cabinet | Plywood and MDF
2. Right Cabinet | Top drawer with internal slide drawer, Bottom drawer file cabinet | Plywood and MDF
3. Center Span | shelf to house A/V Receiver, and wire management boxes on each side | Plywood and MDF
4. Desktop | Maple Butcher Block 74" x 30" x 1.5"

 

The right shelf is the left over material from cutting down a 74" x 42" counter-top. Will make a great shelf for my computer and gaming consoles. Support TBD, probably going to use 3/4 plywood and paint white.

 

 

Here you can see how I hope to lay out the desktop. Nothing always works out 100% on paper, so monitor placement with floating arms will take some trial and error for proper placement. The bracket behind the monitors on the wall is a concept for mounting the arms to, which will allow me to slide them left or right on the wall.

 

The black boxes are Bose 301 V series Bookshelf speakers. The other two components are my computer and 50" TV.

 

 

I had a lot of fun designing this desk and even more fun building it. (Still working on it) I wanted something clean and simple yet functional. As stated above the top will be a dark ebony butcher block, and the lowers will be gloss white.

 

I wanted the faces of the drawers to be flush with the outside of the cabinet instead of having a more traditional 3/4" to 1" exposed face frame. This is a lot more difficult to do because working with 3/4" face frame material is a lot trickier with not a lot of tolerance. You'll see what I mean later.

 

As you can see the top drawer has an inner slide drawer that is half the width of the drawer depth. These trays are great for quick access to smaller items (like pens) without having to dig in the drawer.

 

 

Here we can start to see some of the cabinets construction. The frame is constructed of 3/4 plywood. The sides and bottom are full pieces where as the top and back use brackets to cut down on weight and also give structure to the cabinet. These brackets/cleats will be used to mount the cabinet to the wall as well as secure the counter-top.

 

The arrows indicate where a pocket hole will be used. A pocket hole is an angled hole that allows you to secure the piece with a screw sideways. If you still don't understand it, google it. You'll see what I mean. This allows me to have a clean side with no screw or nail holes to fill before painting. It is also a far better way to Join pieces of wood.

[bmccarthy]

Design Continued

 

 

Good angle to show the rear cleats, as well as the cable management pockets in the center span between the two cabinets. I intentionally designed this desk so that it could break down into 3 pieces to make it easier to install and transport.

 

The blue brackets you see under the center span help with both structural support as well as properly aligning the entire desk. Its cleats will also be used to attach the cabinet to the wall making it very strong.

 

 

A good look at how the inner drawer is utilized. It can be easily removed to gain access to items underneath if necessary.

 

 

I really didn't want to take the time to dove tail these drawers. Since they'll be painted I didn't bother. But you can see that I dadoed the drawer sides 1/2" from the bottom to make a 1/4" gap all around the interior of the cabinet. This allows you to slide in the drawer bottom making it very strong. The drawer bottom is made of 1/4 plywood.

 

I made a recessed handle on the top of this drawer so that I could easily get at it. I also routed the entire top of the drawer with a 1/2" round bit to ease the edges and make it more comfortable to handle. I did this will all the drawer tops. The small square holes indicate nails. As this drawer will not be load bearing there was no need to screw it. Glue and nails will be plenty for this piece.

 

The top and bottom drawer have the same bottom design. These however, are screwed (as indicated by circles with a cross hair) as they will be load bearing on the drawer guides. Here you can also see the internal rail on which the internal drawer slides on. It's just a 3" tall 3/4" piece of plywood that spans the depth of the drawer. Simple.

[bmccarthy]

Layouts

 

Gaming mode / General Use

 

Theater Mode - speakers unobstructed by monitors

 

Work Mode 1 - coding/developing

 

Work Mode 2 - Designing (no need for the 144hz TN panel - bad colors | green monitors are DELL IPS panels)

[MrMcMuffinJr]

WOW!

[bmccarthy]

The Build

Ok, so for some reason I'm missing some of my start pictures. When I get home I'll take out the drawers and show you the other misc steps. 

 

Checking to make sure the clearance gaps are good. You need 1/2" of clearance on either side of the drawer for the drawer slides, otherwise your drawer will bind and you'll probably end up using it as firewood.

 

Test fitting the middle span between the two outer cabinets. Nice to finally see all the hard work of cutting down the material into the right pieces take its shape.

 

Fitting the Drawer Slides

 

This part can be a huge pain in the ass if you don't do it right. What I do is cut this spacer. I like to have a 1/2" gap between the bottom of the drawer and the bottom of the cabinet for clearance purposes. So I add that plus the height I want the drawer guide to be on the drawer to give my my spacer. You'll use this spacer for both the slide inside the cabinet and on the drawer. (at least for these slides) there is exactly 1/2 inches from the bottom of the drawer slide to the bottom of the cabinet slide.

 

USE HORIZONTAL SLOTS FIRST!

 

This step is so important, and yet I see people make this mistake allllllll the time. When installing the drawer, you only need to secure the front and back of the slide to make sure it is fitted properly. You'll add an extra screw later. But you need to use these horizontal slots so that you can make adjustments to the slide once the drawer is inserted into the cabinet, and you'll see why in the next photos.

 

Uh look at how the inner drawer face protrudes!

 

Just kidding, this is normal and almost every drawer I've installed needs some slight adjustment.

 

Thank god I used those horizontal slots!

 

Now with the drawer still in the cabinet you can extend it out and loosen this screw and the screw in the next photo to adjust the slide without removing the drawer! Whoa what a concept! As you can see, I needed to move the slide ever so slightly forward.

 

Rear Adjust Screw

 

Here is the screw on the back side of the drawer slide. Sometimes, you'll have to pull it out slowly so that the slide mechanisms line up right so you can access it. Most are designed with this in mind. Just don't cheap out to much on these and you shouldn't have a problem getting at it.

 

OH yeah, mmmm so flush

 

See fear not. Now that puppy is flush with the face frame and I can mount my drawer faces without them sticking out from the face frame.

 

Secure Away

 

Once the drawer is properly fitted. We don't want it to ever move from that position. So now this is where we use a single hole in the middle to ensure the slide doesn't move back and forth.

 

All Done

 

Cabinet Slides

 

Same process, except now my spacer is sitting on top of the other drawer. I know for a fact that this drawer is nice and square. If you have doubts, just remove the lower drawer and make your spacer tall enough to go off of the lower slide.

 

 

[bmccarthy]

Build Continued

I can't upload anymore photos :((((((. And it won't let me use url images either. 

 

You can view the rest of the current progress here: http://imgur.com/a/epWLK

 

I hope to have this project done this week, so stay tuned!