Kids Desk With Partitions

Throwback to a pandemic project for my kids. Remote school was starting up and we didn't have a good space for our daughter to sit. I decided to build a lightweight desk with removable partitions so we could move the desk wherever we needed.

• Table saw
• Jigsaw
• Sanders
• Drills
• Plywood
• Solid wood for edge banding
• Wood glue
• Router and flush trim bit
• Dowels
• Hairpin Legs
• Threaded Inserts
• Finish of choice

I cut up some maple plywood to make a tabletop, and three partition pieces. I got the rough dimensions by measuring the kid who would be using the desk, her office supplies, and some of the spaces where we would be putting it. I spent a lot of time laying out exactly where things would go since I planned on drilling holes and attaching feet to the partitions so they would be removable.

I cut some solid maple edge banding, glued it on the edges, used a flush trim bit to clean things up, and then added a round over. I also spent a bit of time with a sharp chisel and some sanders to make things as smooth as possible. There were some rough spots due to tear-out and excess glue, but it was a great learning experience.

Creating the feet for the partitions was challenging. I glued up some maple blocks out of multiple pieces of solid wood, and then used a jigsaw, drill, pattern bit on a router, and various sanders to shape them to my liking. Once they had a good shape, I drilled out a hole for a 1" dowel, glued them in place, and added an equivalent hole to the desk where the partitions would be attached.

Note, if you're trying to drill a clean hole against an angled surface with a hand drill, you're going to have a rough time. I should have drilled the holes before cutting out the shape. A drill press would also have helped quite a bit.

I went with hairpin legs for a couple of reasons. They were relatively easy to attach, I could buy taller ones if we continued using the desk in the future, and they were significantly faster and lighter weight than figuring out what to do for legs myself.

I just added some holes, screwed in threaded inserts, and screwed on the legs.