Hello and welcome to the Wide Open Woodworking blog where I, Chaz Painter, go into greater detail about the most recent projects that have been completed. I have recently found that I find myself wanting to write more about a project then what will fit in a Facebook or Instagram post. So, I have decided that I will dump all of that nerdy woodworking talk here. Today’s topic will be the Kitchen Desk that was recently finished.
This project was a interesting one that came in because it was basically a desk that needed to be sized to fit a mini fridge under it. That design constraint and the other things that are going to be sitting on it are where I got the name Kitchen Desk. Aside from those factors, this is really just a taller desk that could be potentially used as a standing desk. The desk also needed to be white, which influenced which wood species that I decided to use.
The wood species that I choose ended up being poplar. Poplar is a great wood for projects that you plan on painting because it doesn’t have very pronounced grain. This is great for paint because paint tends to raise the grain of most wood species, which will give you a very uneven surface. Other woods that would have worked will here are things like maple and beech. However, poplar is quite a bit cheaper than those other woods. I also happened to have some native poplar on hand, so I took the extra time to mill this wood down. If you don’t know what native poplar, or native lumber, is, it is lumber that was cut, milled, and used in the same area. This type of lumber was used in houses, barns, and other structures before stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot were around. Most times a few different species of wood would be used in the same structure because people would use whatever was available at the time. Native lumber is often much higher of quality than even woods that you would get from a hardwood dealer. This is because these trees that were being used years ago were old growth trees, or simply put very old trees. Tangent aside, this poplar that I used was denser than most poplar available. I also used some plywood, but most of it is regular and native poplar.
I won’t bore anyone with the process of milling down the native and regular boards because it isn’t the most eventful step of the process. It does take quite a bit longer to work with native lumber though because there may be a lot of hidden nails and screws that you must get out before running it through your jointer or planer. After I had gotten most of my pieces down to a manageable size, started cutting my joinery. For the main structure of the desk, I used mortise and tenon joints. I cut the mortise with my mortise machine and cut all of the tenons with a dado stack and a stop block on the table saw. This seems to be my favorite way cut these joints because of how fast and simple it is. There is hardly any chisel work left after doing it this way, especially if you have your layout lines set up well. I did spend a lot of extra time during this step, because there were some areas of the structure that could not have aprons or lower supports. These three spaces were the tops of the openings of the bottom of the fridge opening. The top two had to be apron-less so that I had room to put in my hidden drawers in. These drawers are then hung to look like aprons so that you wouldn’t suspect that they are drawers. The bottom left opening could not have a lower support because the fridge had to fit in that area. Aside from those joints, there wasn’t a whole lot of fun stuff going on. All of the plywood pieces were attached with glue and brad nails. I almost forgot the drawer boxes though! They were assembled using finger, or box, joints and the drawer bottoms were dado’d in. I used a Incra IBox jig to make these finger joints as well. The best thing about this jig is that is very easily adjustable, so you can make any sized finger on it. It is also just fun to use! Everything else though was glue and brads except for the tabletop, for that I used figure eight fasteners. These are great for tabletops because they allow for season wood movement. The cabinet section of the desk also features of moveable shelf, so I had to drill the holes for the shelf pins before the internal panels were installed. One final detail that I added was quartered chamfers. These are basically pieces of quarter round trim that are chamfered instead of rounded over. I made all of these pieces out of scrap poplar that I had on hand. These were also attached with glue and brads. Once all of the construction was done the whole thing was painted with white paint and primer in one.
That basically covers this whole build process. First, thank you for reading! Second, please leave any questions that you may have in the comments. Lastly, have a great day!!
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