Lockdown desk

As COVID restrictions start to be relaxed again and there seems to be a more positive feel to this year, I was looking back at projects I made over the past couple of years. At the start of the pandemic, a number of friends (and most of the country!) were told quite suddenly that they had to work from home. This caused a mass shortage of home office furniture, so I helped one friend out by making a quick lockdown desk.

As literally everywhere was closed at the time, I had to use the lumber I already had. Fortunately I had quite a few pallet slats and some assorted bits of constructional lumber, so I was able to make a set of solid legs and glue some planks together to make a top surface.

I transported the desk over in my car after the end of the first lockdown, so I designed it in pieces to be assembled once I got there, with a few screws in the corners of the top and the back brace to hold it firmly together. I used a very thin piece of plywood on top of the glued-up pallet slats to make a flat surface and sanded it smooth.

As my friend’s desk chair hadn’t been delivered yet, I had made the desk to an estimated height, which turned out slightly too low for the new chair. One simple solution was to make a set of feet to raise the desk up by a few centimetres. I used construction lumber again for these pieces and added some routed out details to make them look more interesting, as well as a sloped section at the front.

I glued the feet onto the bottom of the legs on each side and the desk was ready to be used! 🔨