Home Office Standing Desk

Not for sale; this was a commissioned project. Dimensions: Height, 39.75 inches; Length, 42 inches; Width, 23.5 inches; Footrest is 10.5 inches off the ground; Weight without glass, 36 pounds. I made this for some friends of mine, a former coworker and his wife. She uses a standing desk in her home office but wanted something new and more stylish. They gave me some rough dimensions to aim for and I came up with a design. The goal was to make a piece that would complement, but not completely match, a custom shelving unit I had made for them a few months earlier. So, it was fine for the desk to have some different design features. For example, rather than having the pallet-wood pieces positioned side by side, perpendicular to the long sides of the desktop, my friends opted for another option I had offered, a herringbone design. They also agreed to feature a variety of woods instead of just oak. Similarly, while the shelving unit was made of 1.5-inch square wood, the desk has slightly tapered legs.

The Story

When my friend told me the rough dimensions he wanted for the desk, I checked my supply of scavenged furniture parts and by great coincidence found two key components that perfectly fit the requirements. First was a rectangular frame of pine leftover from a dining table I had found in a nearby alley and whose top I had used to make a coffee table and a bench. Second was a set of four legs from a high-top table someone had set out by the sidewalk with a “free” sign. I used my belt sander and hand sanding to remove the varnish on the frame and legs so they would better accept paint. Also, a couple of the legs had minor dings that needed to be smoothed away. I created more support for the top by gluing and nailing a piece of leftover pine across the center of the long spans.

One minor drawback of the frame was that the long sides had offset notches cut out of it to accommodate slide-out supports to hold up the fold-down table extensions. Rather than patch the notches, I flipped the frame over and cut arched openings that not only become a design feature but create slightly more legroom for someone seated at the desk. For a consistent look, I did the same on the short sides. The frame also had holes drilled vertically through it, originally used for screws that mounted it to the tabletop. I filled these holes with custom wooden dowels glued into place.

I painted the frame and legs semi-gloss white. Thinking that this piece might get a lot of contact from shoes, etc., I used Behr “scuff defense” paint. The visible surfaces all have three coats, with a light sanding before the final coat.

One challenge of this project was to come up with a design for the herringbone top in which as many full-length pieces as possible would extend to the edges. To me, this would make the piece look as nice as possible. To figure this out, I cut some templates out of paper, laid them out, and adjusted their length a few times until landing on a length of 9.75 inches, which is exactly three times the width. It ended up with 37 total pieces on the top: 13 rectangles, 10 trapezoids and 14 triangles. Lacking a table saw, I used my belt sander to get wider pieces of pallet wood down to the common 3.25-inch width. I cut the pieces to length with my compound miter saw. Because pallet wood comes in various thicknesses, and lacking a planer, I also used my belt sander on more than half the pieces to bring them all down to a uniform thickness. I slightly rounded the top edges by hand with fine sandpaper. I applied four coats of Minwax water-based clear satin Polycrylic to the pallet wood pieces, with a light sanding before the final coat. This brings out the natural grain tones and patterns and helps protect the wood.

I selected and arranged the pallet wood pieces into the herringbone pattern with the goal of maximizing variability and minimizing adjacent placements of similar pieces. I glued the 37 pieces into place, a few at a time, on a backing piece of 5-millimeter-thick underlayment (from The Home Depot). I cut this piece an inch bigger in both directions so that the extending edges would fit into grooves I had cut into the bottom edge of the frame using my router. This helped to hide the underlayment and allowed the top surface of the thicker frame to be on the same level as the pallet wood. The miter-cornered frame is made from new pine lumber. The desktop is secured to the vertical frame with glue and screws.

I bought a 1x4 piece of new red oak from The Home Depot to create the footrest, which not only makes the desk potentially more comfortable but adds substantially to the desk’s overall stability. The short pieces are attached to the long piece with glue and two screws, the recessed heads covered with wood putty. I left the footrest in natural red oak, to complement the top and because white paint would have shown dirt and scuffs from shoes. For design consistency, I cut the long piece to have the same arch shape as the long side of the frame supporting the top. The I-shaped structure is attached to the legs with glue and four 3/8-inch-thick fluted dowels and four 2.5-inch wood screws, using the holes that were conveniently already in the legs from a somewhat similar structure when they supported a dining a table. The three-piece footrest is finished with five coats of Minwax water-based clear satin Polycrylic, with a light sanding before the final coat.

We topped the desk with a sheet glass with polished edges, purchased from Columbia Mirror and Glass ($95). The glass is and ¼-inch-thick and non-tempered, as recommended by my glass guys. I had it cut ¼ inch shorter than the desktop in both directions.

Related Items: Home Office Pallet Wood Shelves; Coffee Table with Reclaimed Wood Top and Round Metal Frame and Legs; Reclaimed Wood Bench With Black Pipe Legs; Round High-Top Table; Abstract Wall Art from Reclaimed Wood.