Receptionist Desk - Intro

A month or so a friend of mine asked me if I could make her a new desk for her receptionist, unfortunately she also didn't have a real budget for it. I agreed to do it, provided they covered the cost of materials to a maximum of ~$400.00. The desk will be a bit different then a normal desk. It needs to have a wrap-around shelf/ledge at standing height in order for clients to fill in paperwork while protecting the receptionist's monitor and providing at least some level of privacy for the receptionist.

I was given free-reign on coming up with a design. Despite the fact that this will largely be a voluntary effort in terms of my time, I didn't just want to slap together a plywood box and call it done. I visited the office about a month or so ago, but their wasn't much in terms of inspirational furniture in it - the current furniture is a rather hodge-podge collection of mismatched chairs, and a small sofa that has seen its better days. Even the inner office lacked any cohesive furniture style. There was however, at least one thing that did inspire me. The building the office is in is very old and part of the historic downtown Palmyra and across from the old courthouse. The interior design of the building retains some of the historic characteristics in the woodwork on the inside. There were one or two old pieces of furniture - a desk/table in the craftsman style as well.

The design had to incorporate both a desk and the wrap around shelf. So I took my inspiration from a traditional rolltop desk. This provides both the main desk as well as the additional height at the front of the desk on top which a shelf could be added. By using a frame and panel design should help to save some wood and give a more "craftsman" look to the desk. The shelf/ledge will project 7" in front of the desk, and 4" behind with ~1" over the front panel for a total of ~12 inches of usable room. The wrap around will only extend about 20-24" from the front of the main ledge. This allows the ability to use the traditional side panel design of the rolltop desk. The desk needs a single pullout keyboard drawer, though I'm undecided if I will attempt to put additional drawers down the left side in order to add some additional mass to the desk to counterbalance the ledge on the front (in case something heavy is placed on it).

I didn't have time to draw up a complete dimensioned drawing, however I'm going to base most of the design off some drawing for a rolltop desk that appeared in Fine Woodworking magazine a few years ago - "Building a Roll-Top Desk" by Kenneth Baumert. However I don't plan on making it modular nor do I plan on using raised panels. I'll be sticking to a more traditional mission/craftsman style.

Front View

Side View

Top View

Unfortunately I was using an antiquated technique - pencil and paper to sketch the desk using a 1/8" scale. For some reason my old scanner doesn't seem to like pencil drawings. The exact sizing of the rails and styles at least in the side view aren't accurate as I still have a few things to figure out.

I'm planning on building the desk out of oak boards that I currently have on hand out in the shop. I'm thinking of finishing it using the same recipe as I used on our mission style sofa and chairs: analine dye, oil stain, shellac and finally polyurethane to protect the finish.

My original idea to save time and money was to put a  single drawer that extends the full width of the desk that would be attached to two heavy duty drawer slides - which is the way the receptionists current desk is built. I'd like to build in a standard set of drawers on the left and have the keyboard drawer extending the rest of the way to the right. I'll have to give it more thought - the downside is it would add another $30-$40 to the hardware part of the budget.

I had hoped to build it over the course of June after my current work deadlines have been met. Unfortunately my current work project has turned into a tortorous nightmare requiring a ton of overtime. So we'll see how far I can get over the rest of the month. There are times that I just need to get away from the computer and get a bit of physical excercise.