A Built-In Desk from the Ground Up

With base cabinets installed, it was time to work on the actual desktop

In the last installment, I described building and installing the base cabinets for my built-in desk. Now it was time to make the desktop itself.

My design called for it to be 30 inches from front to back, just shy of 11 feet long, and made from black walnut. I bought five 1-¼-inch-thick black walnut boards from my favorite local lumber supplier. For an extra $20, they surfaced three sides and planed them to a uniform thickness. However, the edges were not flat or straight enough for me to glue them together without any gaps. To create the single, uniform top I was planning, I’d need to joint the boards’ edges so they’d match up to each other perfectly. How I’d do that, I didn’t yet know.

As a reminder, jointing is the process of making the edge of a board perfectly flat and smooth so that when it is pushed up next to another jointed edge, there is no gap. If you look at the back of your end with your fingers together so they are just touching, you’ll notice your fingers are not perfectly flat and straight and smooth. There are gaps where your fingers undulate. That’s what I’m trying to avoid with the boards.

Jointing can be done several different ways. One is by running the board across a jointer — a machine that makes a thin cut along the edge perpendicular to the board’s face. Another is by using a straight-edge as a reference and running the board through a table saw or running a router along the straight edge. Or by running a track saw down the board, or by using a long hand plane.

Okay, so I do know how to joint a board. The problem was, I didn’t know how to joint these boards, because they are so long. All of the methods I just mentioned are completely legitimate, but they all get increasingly difficult the longer the board.

And my boards were almost 11 feet long — much longer than anything I’ve ever worked with. My jointer is far too small. I’m not skilled enough with a hand plane. I don’t have a straight edge long enough to use with the table saw. Eventually, though, I hit upon the idea of making a very long straight edge out of plywood that I could clamp to the boards. Then I’d run my router down the board, which should create a perfectly flat, square edge.

On the left, my walnut planks. On the right, my attempt to make a straight edge out of plywood that I could use to run a router along and joint the boards' edges.

However, after running a few boards through this process, I wasn’t convinced that the edge was flat enough. Moreover, I had no way to make sure the two edges were parallel to each other, meaning my boards risked drifting from rectangles into trapezoids.

Then I found a guy with a special tool about 30 minutes away who could ensure perfectly square, parallel, jointed edges for just $100. As much as I wanted to handle all of the milling myself, I decided to give my ego the day off and take the safe route.

I drove out to the guy’s shop and marveled at the stacks of dried walnut, cherry, oak, and other species he had in his warehouse. If it was $100,000 worth of wood, I wouldn’t have been surprised.

We unloaded my paltry five boards and took them to his special machine. It was a large metal table with a giant router suspended over it. Essentially, the boards would be locked down to the table and the router would ride two rails to make a perfectly straight cut.

They say “a poor craftsman blames his tools,” but it’s also true that you should “use the right tool for the job.” This was the right tool.

Indeed, the results were spectacular. Better than that — they were perfect.

I took my planks to a guy not too far away who had an amazing stack of slabs (this was just a small selection), a huge shop, and just the tool I needed to joint my boards. (Not my boards.)

Once I got the boards back to the shop, I used a borrowed biscuit joiner to cut slots in the sides of the boards into which I would shove small oval “biscuits” before pushing the boards together. This helps keep the board faces flush with each other when gluing and clamping them together, eliminating uneven seams.

Over a few days, I glued the boards together, first making sure to have their best sides facing up. Once the glue dried and I removed the clamps, I then filled any knots or other holes or divots with a two-part epoxy. Once the epoxy dried, I sanded the entire surface through several grits until it was smooth and I could no longer see scratches or saw marks.

To make the desktop, I first cut slots with the biscuit joiner, then glued and clamped the boards together, and the filled holes with clear epoxy.

Finally, I cut the surface to a final size — trimming the ends and slicing about five inches off the back. Then I applied a coat of General Finishes Hard Wax Oil to bring out the natural beauty of the walnut.

Once the finish dried, I and a friend carefully carried the top into the office and set it on a rolling table. This proved challenging because the desktop is the exact width of the office itself. But once the desktop was on the rolling table, I could simply push it into position, sliding it gently onto the base cabinets between the two walls.

To my surprise and delight, it fit perfectly. From the underside of the base cabinets, I used two screws to lock the top in place.

The hard wax oil really brings out the richness of the walnut. Setting the top in place required some careful maneuvering and precise sizing. It fit perfectly.

With the desktop secure, I was now able to slide on the upper cabinets and screw them to the studs. (I also had to cut out outlet access in one upper cabinet, which I now think I set too high. Sigh.)

I was happy to get the upper cabinets in place, but as I looked at them, I realized I had made a mistake. Two mistakes, actually. Where the two end cabinets meet the middle cabinet, the two ¾-inch plywood sides make a 1.5-inch vertical “divide.” However, on the outside walls of the two end units, there is just one ¾-inch plywood side. In other words, the vertical divides on the end were thinner than the ones in the middle, which looked odd. What I needed to do was to add a second ¾-inch piece of plywood to each side piece.

To do this, I need to cut new side pieces, drill new shelf-pin holes, and then glue these faux sides into position inside the ends of the two upper cabinets.

It was an easy thing to do, but of course I screwed it up by mis-indexing the shelf-pin holes, which would have meant that my shelves wouldn’t be level. Argh! I went back and made new side pieces — with the holes in the right places — and then after triple-checking, glued them in place.

Next came a step I had been dreading. As I mentioned earlier, the two base cabinets both covered power outlets — or would have, had I not cut openings for them. Still, they would be virtually inaccessible under the desktop. So, I bought two pop-up power outlets that would bring power (and ethernet) to the desktop itself. Doing this, though, required drilling two four-inch holes in my beautiful walnut desktop. Yikes!

I measured and checked and double-checked my measurements. I even drilled into scrap cardboard just to be sure everything would fit correctly. Once I was confident all would be well, I pulled the trigger — literally and figuratively. To my relief, the drill cut clean holes and the pop-up units fit perfectly.

Before painting the upper units, I covered the desktop with thick construction paper and masking tape. Once the paint was on and dry, I screwed outlet plates in place and started using my desk as God intended.

Once the desktop was in, it was time to cut holes for pop-up outlets and add and paint the upper cabinets.

It’s not done yet, though. Far from it. I still need to make and install shelves, drawers, doors, and finish trim. The shelves, drawers, and doors I will get to soon. The trim, however, will have to wait until the room is drywalled. I hope to do that before the end of the year. We’ll see.

Now I think it’s time to start work on the entertainment center.