DIY Maple Desk Shelf

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My workstation was piling up with THINGS and it was time to make some changes. During our office makeover I decided I wanted to make a monitor stand that was a little larger than those on the market. I needed something that was as long as both my monitors when sitting side by side, but I also wanted it to house my speakers, dock, charge pad, and notebooks. We used some scrap wood we had from some old built-ins we tore out of the living room. This is the step-by-step plans on how we made it.

If you want to watch us make both the desk shelf and the easy monitor stand, you can check it below:

 

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Tools and Materials

Wood of choice

Belt sander (if removing old finish)

Random orbital sander

Sand paper (100, 150, 220 grit)

Table saw

Stain or clear coat (we used Flat Poly)

2” angled brush

Tack cloth

 

STEP 01

Cuts and Measurements

I’ll share my exact measurements in this post, but feel free to adjust based on your desk size. Every piece cascades, so that the legs are 1” shorter front to back than the top shelf and the lower shelf is 1” shorter front to back than the legs. This allows a 1/2” overhang at all joints on both the front and back of the piece.

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Top: 9” deep X 49” wide

Legs: 8” deep X 5” high

Shelf: 7” deep X 29.5” wide

Back of shelf: 2.5” high X 29.5” wide

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STEP 02

Round The Edge

Once we had all of our pieces cut, we rounded the edges of select sides with a 3/8” round over bit on the router table.

Top shelf: Round all edges.

Legs: Round bottom and sides. Leave top flat where it connects top the shelf top.

Bottom shelf: Round long edges. Leave sides flat.

Back of shelf: DO NOT ROUND. Leave all sides flat.

If you don’t have a router table, or you don’t like the rounded edges you can do this with square edges and ease the sharp corners by hand with sandpaper.

STEP 03

Dry Fit/Mock Up

Places all your pieces together to make sure everything lines up and looks how you want before sanding and assembly.

STEP 04

Sanding and more sanding

We were upcycling wood with an old finish so we used a belt sander with 60 grit first followed by 60, 80, 100, 150, 220 on the random orbital sander. A planer would have made this job easier. If you are starting with fresh wood, you can start with the random orbital sander and sand through various grits at your discretion, typically 120, 150, 220 until smooth. Sand the rounded edges by hand.

STEP 05

Assembly

We chose to assemble the desk shelf before applying finish to make sure everything looked good, and we didn’t mar the finish as we drilled the holes.

We used a Kreg pocket hole jig to attach the wood pieces together. We started by attaching the legs first and we decided to place the pocket holes inside of the shelf. We will later fill these with plugs. We evenly spaced 4 pocket holes across the legs.

Next we attached the back of the shelf to the middle shelf using pocket holes and we predrilled the holes for attaching the back of the shelf to the top. We used kreig clamps to hold everything in place.

There are many ways to join wood, including simply predrilling and screwing standard wood screws through the surface of the material and filling the foles with plugs or wood filler. One could also use fancier equipment like a biscuit joiner, domino joiner, or Lamello P system.

STEP 06

Fill Exposed Plugs

Once we had all the holes drilled and the shelf assembled, we took off the middle shelf leaving the legs attached to the top only, and filled those pocket holes with Kreg wood plugs using wood glue. Once they were cured we used a pull saw to saw off the excess and sanded that section once more through the various grits with the random orbital sander.

If you need to fill any spots, go ahead and do that with matching wood filler now, and sand when cured.

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STEP 07

The Finish

After deliberating over the finish (you can see more on that in the vid) we decided to keep the wood natural and added three coats of clear flat water-based polyurethane, sanding lightly with 220 between coats as per the product instructions. Once that was cured, we did the final assembly.

STEP 08

Admire and Style

Once your stain/clear coat is cured, admire that shit and then put it on your desk.

PROJECT RATING

Skill Level?

Beginner/Intermediate.

If you have a basic understanding of tools and have the machinery required you can pull off this project in about two days.

Would You Do It Again?

Maybe! It’s nice having something hand made sitting in the office. It would have been easier to buy this had the correct size and color been available.

Was it Worth The Hassle?

Yes, we’re really happy with the result of this project. It turned out exactly like the sketch.

You can watch us build this desk shelf in the video below, and can find the entire room makeover here. If you are looking for something a little easier, check out our DIY Easy Monitor Stand.

 
DIYBecki and Chris