Hello! I'm thirsty. Can I have some water?

Left to do:

1. Put handles on cabinet doors on hutch.
2. Put casters on the bottom.
3. Another coat of varnish, and final polishing.

Wow! Looks awesome.

Today, we started assembling the desk. The shell is, for the most part, complete. Tomorrow the fun begins with making the drawers, cutting and adding the trim, and hopefully have the drawer facings all ready for when the pulls arrive sometime Tuesday.

Left front, where the CPU is stationed.

From the backside.

Shelf above the CPU.

Without the flash!

I set a screened tent up outside the shop to do my staining and varnishing. Pretty handy! Anyways, the slotted paper shelves on the right side are shown here.

The whole tent.

Learning from my past mistakes using the pocket hole jig, it's important to keep those edges tight. This is the start of the desk's right side.

The sides go up. 

Full view minus the flash.

Different angle.

Adding the bottom shelf. 

Paper tray and paper drawer area.

The backside.

Whoa! I forgot to take pictures of the desktop being added, but here is a shot of it attached.

Without the flash.

Paper trays cut and added. 1/2" finger holes drilled for easy pull-out.

Backside. Is it level? Yep!

Quality Assurance (QA) suggested I clean the bench clutter and take another picture. Notice the keyboard tray slides at bottom center?

The "money" shot. I stood up on a chair to take this picture, I hope OSHA doesn't read this, lol!

More fun coming tomorrow. And although you can't see the dogs, trust me they were out there following me around every single step of the way! Now you know why I call it "Dustpuppy Designs".

Day 2

Do you know Murphy. I sure do!

Here's a lesson for anyone daring to "square off" (the four outside corners, for example) your project using a right angle square. You're better off cutting spacers to fit the "EXACT" dimension FIRST (i.e. edge of desktop with an outside vertical piece) , then square off. Otherwise, you'll find yourself in deep doo doo when your squared edge is off by, oh, 1/2"  on the opposing end. Which happened to me, today, costing me valuable time spent on correcting it. When I went to take measurements for the left side drawers, I discovered this very problem. Unfortunately, I had plugged all the pocket holes earlier today, and I had to drill them out. GAH!  (shakes fist at Murphy)

Pocket hole plugs come too long, so I made a jig to help me shorten them. (One at a time)

Oak pocket hole plugs cut and now stained.

Back pieces cut and drilled.

Paper trays stained.

Back pieces stained.

The casters came today.

Back pieces added. What you don't see is that the entire inside of the desk has been varnished. I did that before adding the backing.

Better lighting.

CPU shelf varnished and laminated. Far end is the paper tray backing, stained.

The boo boo corrected (note square at bottom right).

Day 3

Today (Tuesday 24th) started off with a quick completion of varnish for a shelf (Sherry performed this task while I contemplated how thick or thin I was going to trim out the desk facings. I decided on 3/8" for the lower desk and 3/4" for the desktop. The tricky part was getting the facings for the paper tray to be slotted. I actually had to route these manually because my portable router table didn't exceed 7" and the largest piece of trim was over 28". I cut all trim and facings by hand, I did not buy ready made moulding.

It looks nice.

Are you asking yourself, "What are these for?" Because the moulding was 1/16" of inch larger than the 3/4" plywood, I had to cut some lauan to extend the drawer slides past the lip so that the drawers would fit on the slides. Yes, 1/16" makes a world of difference for a drawer slide.

I'm starting to feel the love, baby!

Paper trays that slide. Just rub the sides with wax once in a while.

CPU station.

I need a new trash box, because this is running over, haha!

Day 4

First drawer. Should hold plenty of reams of paper.

Second drawer and the realization I need more birch plywood. Off to Mr. Plywood's.

3rd drawer installed.

A little trick for drawers bottoms.

Dust orbs (using flash) and 4th drawer installed.

All 5 drawers installed.

Open sesame, and the keyboard tray is installed.

From an angle.

Today, the drawer facings and pulls get done.

Sorry no pictures of the cutting process, but I can tell you it involved two trips to the hardware store to purchase 3 new (60 and 80 teeth) saw blades. Finish plywood almost certainly needs 80 teeth or it will chew the wood up.

After cutting the boards,"Stain first!", is my personal motto. As glue tends to ruin finish areas, if you don't.

Sherry found "Mr. Plywood" online. I had never heard of the place and promptly paid the store a visit. What a godsend! If you live in Portland, OR and need lumber or moulding, forget Home Depot or Lowes, visit this place, you won't be sorry. I found the red oak paneling you see being used as the backing. I couldn't find this anywhere (i.e. Parr Lumber, Home Depot, or Lowes).

Different angle. The lighting tends to wash-out the actual color of the wood.

Hutch cabinet doors. I found some rough cut oak boards at Mr. Plywood for "half" the price of standard oak boards at Home Depot. Lowes is even higher. I used the router to make my borders. Turned out great!

The entire front of the hutch now has real oak facings.

Roman ogee moulding crowns the hutch and the boots

Crown.

Boots

The backside.

First door goes on. It needs some depth!

This is beaded ogee (above picture) I was thinking of keeping it the same as the crown and stands only smaller (1/4" x 1/2")

One cabinet door on…

Both cabinet doors on…

Getting close to completion.

CD rack

CD rack inserted. (Don't mind the dust!)

CD racks and door moulding (decided to go with half moon).

MInus have the shell (oil bronzed) pulls added to the cabinet doors (when they get here) and having the felt boots glued on. The hutch is pretty much done. I went with the half moon moulding on the doors, simply because I ran out of time and needed to move forward to stay on track with the desk.

CD racks are done and installed.

Wow! It turned out so nice. I'd pat myself on the back but the desk construction awaits me!

List of remaining things to do on the hutch:

1. Router CD rack inserts, glue and install.
2. Lay out moulding (half moon) on cabinet doors. Stain and varnish.
3. Putty all small gaps. Stain and varnish.
4. Glue felt fabric to bottom of hutch "boots". (will be done today – 8/21)
5. Add shell pulls. (oiled bronze finish) ***Still awaiting UPS delivery***

You’ll need the following:

• A good pair of large sharp scissors
• A size K crochet hook
• A large empty (recycled) margarine tub for cut strips
• Empty paper grocery bag for clippings

Step 1:

I cut up to 10 bags at a time, but for first timers I recommend cutting at least 5 bags at once when starting out. The first thing we need to do is flatten out the bags like so:

Step 2:

Now you need to fold the bag length-wise (you can cut in quantity by folding several bags together at once), like so:

Step 3:

Cut off the bottom near the seam, and recycle the pieces as packing material or discard.

Step 4:

Cut the bag into 1″ to 1.5″ strips. (A bit of advice: cut thicker  mil plastic bags into thinner strips, you’ll thank me later).

Step 5:

To join strip pieces together, end to end, you’ll need to use the square knot technique.

Then pull it through:

Now you’re ready to crochet!

Don’t know how to crochet? Do what I did and watch YouTube videos here and here. You can pause and replay until it makes sense to you.

Happy crocheting!