Making A Shaker Style Desk for my Writer Friend

         Last summer, my friend Andres had asked me to build him a new writing desk. He is a true devotee to the craft, writing for over an hour each weekday on a failing IKEA desk, and thus was in sore need of some new furniture.    

        I chose to design the desk in the style of Shaker furniture since it's not an overly complicated style, but still looks quite neat. Historically, most of these kind of desks were made of local species such as Pine, Maple, or Cherry (as is this desk), and were often lightly painted or stained in red, yellow, or orange hues.

Shaker Style & Color

Color in Shaker Furniture / Craft

        The Shaker world was actually incredibly colorful in the furniture and clothing they produced. Unfortunately, in the late 1800s and onward, most antique Shaker furniture was stripped and re-finished without color, since the predominant style of the time was to emphasize the 'natural wood' look of objects. 

        I chose not to stain the desk because of the unique aging process of Cherry. In contrast to other North American wood-species, whose color turns to a more amber / yellowish tone over time, Cherry develops a rich reddish-brown color as it's been increasingly exposed to UV Light & air.

Creating the Base Frame

Leg Assembly using Domino Joinery

        Most of the production was done at the shop I work at during the off-hours, however I did do some work at home so as to avoid having to transport too many large assemblies & jigs on the metro. 

My idea was to pre-assemble the legs with the short rails before joining it with a pre-assembled middle-section to create the overall desk frame.

I assembled the overall desk frame in my living room using pipe clamps from home-depot. I actually returned them the next day because they are expensive and I rarely use pipe clamps this long for projects. Thankfully they have a generous return policy because I've done this kind of thing maybe 3 times now for different sorts of clamps.     

        

Tabletop & Drawer   

        Most Shaker desks have a large overhang on all 4 sides, so I designed the tabletop to be very close to the maximum width that could fit into the shop's planer.

Tabletop Glue-Up and Cutting to Length after Planing to Final Thickness

        After creating a drawer to fit in the central space of the desk, I cut off the middle of the front rail before re-installing as the drawer front (along with some added support rails). This makes it seem like the drawer pulls directly out of a continuous grain.

Drawer and Hardware to Attach to Tabletop Installed

 A Funny Story & A Short Film

Completed Desk & A Happy Writer

        My friend had requested that I make this desk a bit taller than normal so that he would be able to easily cross his legs beneath it while writing (then being able to raise his chair to write at a more comfortable arm level afterwards).       

         Only after having delivered the desk to his apartment did he realize that the chair he thought he could raise was already at the maximum height, leading to me having to make a very delicate leg-cutting reparation a week later.

Andres' Short Film Poster

        If you are interested in seeing a short film he wrote and produced last year, feel free to click here to watch it on YouTube. Now that he has such a remarkable desk to write on, the next one will surely be Oscar-nominated.