Home office

Se we were invited to share older projects I thought I would post my first and biggest project ever. This beautiful office was designed by my friend and woodworking mentor, who also got me started. He showed me almost everything I know about woodworking, although I’ve been learning a lot more here. I built this last year. The cabinets are oak plywood and the top is solid oak. My friend is a whiz with design and plywood but not experienced with much solid wood products and I’m very disappointed to say that the desktop has racked a bit. I’m waiting for a few humid months to pass before I try to do anything to fix it. Such a shame since when it went on to the cabinets it was such completely perfect joinery including the big mitred corner.

My friend helped me with the upper cabinet and the lower cabinet boxes as well as the desk top. He made one drawer so I could learn. Then he went to Europe and I finished everything else myself. I have to say that I’m extremely proud of this accomplishment especially considering that I have never worked the wood before.

The upper cabinet doors are plexiglass with oak sliding frames. I sanded the back side to give it the opaque appearance. The cabinet sits off the wall a couple of inches and I put lighting on the recess. This makes it glow from behind. This is the only part of the office that is not oak. We made this first before designing anything else do I whitewashed the bottom and face of it with something from minwax. It wasn’t exactly the finish I was looking for but I like the outcome anyway.

The glass for the workstations are IKEA table tops. I routed the desktop so they sit flush. The pencil drawers underneath are the same width. I also made a couple of organizers for them out of oak scraps from building the table top.

The corner cabinet now houses a printer. The circle is for decoration. That was my first ever circle cut. :-)

I painted and stained the inside of the filing cabinet drawers. Why? Why not? I like it. The drawer slides are $6 amazon specials: kV economical heavy duty ones. No frills but they work perfectly.

I already posted a creation for the drawer pulls. I think they’re very unique. I glued and screwed the drawer fronts on. I used a single piece of oak ply for the fronts so the grain pattern would flow between the drawers. There is only 1/16 space around. So far there hasn’t been any rubbing so I guess I did that pretty well. They fit like a glove.

The shelf on my wife’s side has bays made up of the supports. In one bay I installed a light and put a motion sensor on it. It makes a great night light and it has only two 9 watt cfl bulbs.

The backsplash on my side is 1/2* oak ply. After working with all of this plywood I have become a master of edge banding. LOL

I sometimes work from home and it is a pure pleasure. I actually feel far more productive in this office than going to my city office. I’m very happy.