DIY Desk Organizer

We all know working from home can be somewhat of a pain. Especially, trying to keep your work space clear and clutter free. This desk organizer is designed to help keep your workspace neat and allow you to concentrate more on working and less on looking for something. These instructions are designed for ages 16+ as it does involve some woodworking skills. Feel free to change the placement of shelves to your liking. This is something I decided to do for a project at school that helped me learn the different tools found in a typical workshop.

Here are the standards, practices, and contexts from the 2020 Standards for Technological and Engineering Literacy (STEL) that relate to this project:

Standards:

• Core Concepts of Technology and Engineering (Standard 2): Students will have working knowledge, experience and understand the importance of using tools and machines, materials, knowledge, and time.
• Integration of Knowledge, Technologies, and Practices (Standard 3): Students will understand the key idea of how engineering impacts other fields. In this case, Mathematics plays a huge role with things to get everything aligned.
• Design in Technology and Engineering Education (Standard 7): Students will be able to fully grasp how to make a product with the end user in mind.

Practices:

• Creativity: This involves questioning, logical thinking, and reasoning.
• Making and Doing: This involves designing, modeling, building, and using technological products and systems.

Contexts:

• Material Conversion and Processing
• The Built Environment

• Plywood

• Hot glue gun and glue stick
• Ruler
• Table saw and Band saw (Preferred), or Chop Saw (Optional). Really depends on availability

• Spray paint

Cost Estimation: Roughly $63.

After you gather all of your material, Begin by cutting the plywood to the appropriate sizes.

Here are my recommendations:

• Table or Band saw: For straight lines and you are planning to cut all the way to the end.
• X-Carve CNC Machine: You can use this to cut all of the different shapes and sizes.

Here are the pieces you are going to need:

• 16" x 11" (Base)
• 16" x 11 7/6" (Standing back)
• 4" x 5.5" (Left, Standing)
• 3.5" x 5.5" (Left-Center, Standing)
• 11 x 11 7/6" (Center divider)
• (2) 11 x 11 7/6" (L-Shaped edge)
• (2) 8.5" x 5.5" (Right, Shelves)

See rough sketch attached.

Now that you have cut all of your pieces, it's time to grab the hot glue gun. Take your two L-Shaped (side pieces) and standing back pieces and glue them around the base. I strongly suggest you work from left to right. Also, it may be helpful to prop against a wall to make sure it is standing up straight. Unfortunately, I learned the hard way.

After letting the outside edges completely dry, let's begin making our different compartments.

1. Take your 4" x 5.5" and glue 3.5" from the edge.
2. Take your 3.5" x 5.5" and to close off the the lower left hand compartment.
3. Take your 7" x 11 7/6" and glue 4" from the left side edge.

Now that the left hand side is completely dry, let's begin making our shelves and completing our binder holder in the center.

1. Take your 11" x 11 7/6" and glue 8.5" from the right edge.
2. Take one of your 8.5" x 5.5" and glue 6" from the top right corner.
3. Take the other 8.5" x 5.5" and glue 2.5" from the top right corner.

Now that our desk organizer is looking good, let's sand everything to make every surface even. I suggest sanding because once we begin painting, if there is any uneven part it shows and it's not pretty.

Now the fun part, painting! Grab a can of spray paint, the color of your choice and simply spray everything.

Tip: Stand back about 1 feet to avoid paint smears of it running down. Take a look at the the right side standing piece, that will continue to show until I go back and repaint it.

Now that your organizer is complete, you are done! Now you can begin and place items where they belong.