- There had to be a place to rest his foot while standing at it. Kind of like that handy brass rail when standing at a bar, now that I think about it...
- The top had to be at an angle to help him when working on photos and whatnot, and had to have a slight edge along the bottom (to keep his pencil from rolling off).
- He had to be able to disassemble it enough to get it into his SUV for the ride home.
I couldn't really find any free plans online for a standing desk, aside from one or two of the half-desk style that sit on top of a regular desk, and decided that I'd have to design it myself. I played around for a little while with a design for an adjustable height system, but it was pretty clunky and Dad said he didn't care if it was adjustable or not, as long as it was the right height. So I came up with a style and design for the base, and figured we'd handle the top when we got up to it.
A few years ago, when Mister Awesome gave me the oak plywood (that I used to build my bookcases), he also gave me a full sheet of 3/4" baltic birch plywood. I had cut it into big pieces for storage ages ago, but it had been sitting on top of the cabinets in the garage ever since. Given how nice baltic birch can look, even when the edges aren't banded, I figured this would be the perfect project for it.
So I hauled down all the pieces, scratched out some measurements, and came up with a cutlist:
We then very happily spent pretty much the whole week in the garage, working on the desk. We were having so much fun that we didn't take a LOT of pictures, but you're welcome to the ones I have, in rough chronological order..
Taking stock of the material:
Gluing up the leg assemblies and cutting them to size (guest appearance by Lucille, my trusty cross-cut sled):
Pieces and pieces!
It's worth noting here that ALL of the material for this desk, and I do mean all of it, came from my scrap and/or offcuts piles. The plywood, as I mentioned, was a gift from Mister Awesome, the sanded pine plywood I used for the top was leftover from (I think) the bookcases, and the oak banding was all from a load of white oak that mysteriously showed up beside my house. (Seriously, if you gave me a whackload of white oak - mostly flooring pieces and large pieces of trim - I have completely forgotten about it and really need to thank you.) Even the bolts, washers, and nuts were purchased a long time ago for a different project and just never used.
Gluing the banding to the footrest (guest appearance by my new outfeed table that really could use its own post, I think):
Adding splines to the edges of the table top banding (obviously the one day where I didn't have any adult supervision - had to seriously beef up my spline jig to handle this):
I decided to use some plywood as the splines - a little design detail that I'm inordinately proud of, to be honest:
Everything cut, sanded, and arranged for finishing. This is also how it looks when disassembled for transport, by the way. Assembly involves exactly ten bolts; everything else is a half-dado lap joint or just friction fit:
Finishing was just applying a coat of Danish oil to everything:
The Danish oil did a nice job picking up the contrast of the plywood splines in the white oak banding:
Of course, once I finished, I immediately thought of a much more elegant and adjustable solution for the top and even drew it up in SketchUp just to prove to myself that it would work.
So if I ever get given another sheet of 3/4" baltic birch plywood, and Dad wants another standing desk, I can try it again. Until then, though, I think it came out really nice:
Dad's happy (and healthy!), so that's the main thing.
