Perfect Desk: The building begins
Although I already told you what the final plan was, before I got there I still had to do some stain samples. This is what completely saved me from my original design since it would have been a disaster that I wouldn’t have known about until I had already spent all the money. I now consider it beyond required to make the samples and figuring out exactly what I am doing and if it is even going to work. That being said, it is a huge pain. Mostly, since the samples are really only about 4 square inches, the take about 2 seconds to do, and yet the paint brush gets just as dirty as doing the entire desk, which means cleaning up the oil based stain and polyurethane takes just as long. So the process ends up being: sand for 5 minutes to get everything smooth, 2 seconds to cover it in stain, wait 5 minutes and wipe clean, let it dry, repeat stain and wiping, clean brush for 10 minutes. I did this a bunch of times.
Once I had a stain and poly sample that I was really happy with, it was time to finally begin construction. Part of my final design was to use a plywood base for the table surface and then just trim the front to hide it all. The hope here was that it would make it easier to get a solid, flat desk. The other huge advantage is that it let me buy one sheet of plywood (along with a couple 2x4s) and build the first part of the desk to serve as a mockup to make sure I liked the height and size of the desk without having to buy the more expensive solid wood. The width of the wall is 111 inches and so the desk will match that. While the final top surface will be one solid piece, structurally the desk will be in three sections. The center section will be 39 inches and plenty wide enough for me to to use with my current 3 monitor and 2 computer setup. The right side will be for all the other equipment needed on the desk: printer, router, modem, etc, and then eventually a filing cabinet below the desk. The left side is being designed so that a second person can set there and either use a laptop or the second computer. Having the three sections gives me good places to put the support legs that I will have to have since I have no interest in trying to create a floating surface that long that I feel confident putting all that computer equipment on.
On my trip to the hardware store, I ended up switch from plywood to MDF as the base material. I actually sat in the isle of Home Depot debating between the two. The price was effectively the same so that didn’t matter. The MDF is a good deal heavier. This is still a little bit of a concern because I will be building it downstairs in the garage and installing it upstairs in my office. I am just going to have to hope that 2500 cubic inches of MDF plus 2500 cubic inches of aspen end up being a manageable weight for me and whatever friend I wrangle into helping me move it.