Desk Shelf

After months of propping up my monitor with books on a desk covered with clutter, I decided it was time for a solution.  Finally, I have storage for all that stuff on my desk, can actually access those books, and it's stylin' to boot!  My desk shelf measures roughly 32"x5", and has a 14" space underneath to accommodate the height of most books and magazines.

This is one of my first wood projects, so the construction is pretty basic.  I just used screws to create the frame, as I knew I they would be covered by the paper.  if you have any construction tips to add, please feel free to post in the comments.

I used mostly scrap to construct this (as pictured here), but if you are purchasing lumber you will need the following:

• 8 feet 1x10 (this is pretty exact, you might want to get more just in case)
• 3 feet thin board (1/8"-1/4" thick) 10" wide (for drawer bottoms and backs)
• screws and brads
• black high gloss paint
• decorative paper/poster for accent color
• 2 drawer pulls

For equipment, I used a table saw, circular saw, and drill.  Also the belt sander for when I had to fudge things to fit, which happened more than I'd like to admit.  I built it at the San Francisco TechShop, which is an open-access workshop, so it has pretty much every kind of tool on hand.

Cut pieces for the main body of the desk shelf. 

From your 1x10, cut:
32" wide for main shelf piece
x2  7.5" wide pieces for bottom of drawer containers
x4  4.5" wide pieces for sides of drawer containers

And from your thin board, cut:
x2  9"x4.5" pieces of thin board for backing of drawer containers

For the drawer container pieces from the 1x10, you will then want to shave off the width of your thin board from their 10" measurement, to accommodate the width of the backing. 

Screw together drawer casings, with the 4.5" pieces on the outside.  When finished, hammer on backing with some brads.

When both drawer casings are finished, screw them to the main 32" piece.

Cut wood for drawers. 

From your 1x10, you will be cutting pieces for the sides and front of the drawers.  If all your measurements have been accurate up to this point, your side pieces should measure roughly 3.75" high, and they will need to be trimmed around 1" (depending on the thickness of your thin board) to allow space for the front panel.  The front pieces should be roughly 3.75" x 7.5".  However for all of these pieces make sure to measure, as in mine I found slight differences between the two sides and cut accordingly.

You will also need to cut the wood for the bottom and back from your thin sheet of wood, but that will come later.

To attach the bottoms of the drawers, make grooves lengthwise along the bottom of each side piece, which will fit around bottom pieces cut from the thin board.  This is to keep the drawers light and not waste any more space than necessary in an already small drawer space. 

To make the grooves, I used a crosscut sled for the table saw, which allowed me to make them more accurately and safely.  This picture is from a later step, but is to show what the setup looks like.  I made the grooves about 1/4" into the wood.  Because my thin wood was around 3/16" thick, I had to make two passes with the table saw to create the width of groove that I needed.  I made them around 1/4" up from the bottom of the drawer. 

After making the lengthwise grooves, measure and cut the pieces for the bottoms of your drawers.  It should be flush with the front and back of the side pieces.  Put the pieces together, and check that it fits into the space for the drawers! 

Use the same technique to add a back to each drawer. 

Make the grooves along the backside of the side panels, making sure all your pieces match up (unlike mine- as you can see in this picture I messed up and added a channel on the front by accident!).

Once finished, measure and cut your back panel pieces to size. 

Once all your drawer pieces are cut, and you are sure that they all fit together and slide easily into their drawer housing, it is time to glue everything together. 

Line the edges of the drawer bottom and back with wood glue, and fit all the drawer pieces together.  Clamp it together and allow to dry, making sure it doesn't warp.

When they are dry, screw on the front drawer panels. 

And voila, done with the woodworking and time to move on to decoration!

Time for paint!  I knew I was going to cover the top, sides, and drawer faces with colored paper, so I only painted the surfaces that I knew would be exposed (front and back edges, inside and outside of drawers, under and inside of stand. 

I used high-gloss black oil based paint, to get a nice shiny finish.  Apply two coats, allowing it to thoroughly dry in between.

And now the fun part!  I had a great poster lying around which I thought would be perfect to contrast with the glossy black.  Because the length of the poster was limited, I had to be strategic about how I cut it apart.  I ended up needing to have a seam along the top of the stand.

Once you have measured and cut the pieces to attach, lay down glue and spread evenly across the wood surface with a piece of cardboard.  Carefully place your paper down and smooth out any wrinkles.  Add weight on top of the paper, and work your way across the top of the shelf this way, smoothing and weighting down the paper as you go.  I used a sheet of waxed paper to make sure no excess glue ended up on the books I used for weight.

I applied the paper first to the top, and then to the sides, drying it as shown in the last picture.

Also cut paper for the front of the drawers, and glue/weight those as well.

When everything is dry, the last step is to attach the drawer pulls.  Drill a hole in the middle of the front of each drawer, and screw them in. 

And with that, you are FINISHED!  You are now ready to get to work in style!