Craftsman Desk

It's often times that woodworking projects come out of necessity.

- Logan Wittmer

Take this desk for example. As I built my new shop (that doubles as Popular Woodworking's shop), I built room for an office. After all, my job's not all fun and games in the shop. After trimming out the office in bur oak, I decided I was going to keep with that theme. And as much as I love shaker design, I couldn't bring myself to make an oak shaker desk.

1 Set the bit so that it's as close to centered on the thickness of the stock as possible.

With the character and look of this grungy oak, I knew that I really wanted to dive into the Craftsman style. I found a few photos of a Stickley desk in this style and decided to make it my own. What I came up with was a scaled-down version (not nearly as deep), and designed to house all of the tech equipment that I use on a daily basis. Instead of a set of five drawers, my version has two drawers, a keyboard tray, and a large computer cubby with a cut-out for airflow.

2-3 Make test cuts in both orientations, and cut the tests apart to check the fit on themselves.

From the Ground Up

For most of my projects, I start with the legs and build up. This desk is no exception. I was pulling really hard to have as much quarter sawn material on this desk as I could. Using quarter-sawn material for legs leaves you with two faces that are plain-sawn. That is not what I desired. So, instead of veneering these legs, I decided the best option was to miter the legs, and build a set of hollow, locked miter legs. This starts off by selecting enough quartersawn stock for four faces, of four legs.