Craftsman Desk

Bur Oak and Craftsman design make this desk a classic look with a modern use.

Project #2507 • Skill Level: Advanced • Time: 6 Days • Cost: $1000

It’s often times that woodworking projects come out of necessity. Take this desk for example. As I built my new shop (that doubles as Popular Woodworking’s shop), I built room for an office. After all, my job’s not all fun and games in the shop. After trimming out the office in bur oak, I decided I was going to keep with that theme. And as much as I love shaker design, I couldn’t bring myself to make an oak shaker desk.

With the character and look of this grungy oak, I knew that I really wanted to dive into the Craftsman style. I found a few photos of a Stickley desk in this style and decided to make it my own. What I came up with was a scaled-down version (not nearly as deep), and designed to house all of the tech equipment that I use on a daily basis. Instead of a set of five drawers, my version has two drawers, a keyboard tray, and a large computer cubby with a cut-out for airflow.

Online Extras: See all of the online extras from the June 2025 issue, including a Sketchup model of the desk.
Watch and Learn: Purchase the joinery mastery class from Frank Klausz to learn more classic woodworking joints.
More Craftsman Furniture: Build a classic Craftsman Bookcase

Cutlist and Diagrams

Download: Mission Desk Cutlist and Diagrams

From the Ground Up

For most of my projects, I start with the legs and build up. This desk is no exception. I was pulling really hard to have as much quarter sawn material on this desk as I could. Using quarter-sawn material for legs leaves you with two faces that are plain-sawn. That is not what I desired. So, instead of veneering these legs, I decided the best option was to miter the legs, and build a set of hollow, locked miter legs. This starts off by selecting enough quartersawn stock for four faces, of four legs.

If you’ve never used a locking miter bit, here’s a little info. Basically, the bit creates a miter with a tongue and a groove on it. These lock into the mating parts. Two parts of the leg are routed against the fence (photo 4), and the other two are routed laying flat (photo 5). The set up is a bit tedious — requiring a delicate balance of bit height and fence location. A lot of test cuts are necessary, but it’s not difficult to dial in. First, you’ll want to test your set up laying the piece flat. Cut a test, then chop that piece in half, so that you can match the joint to itself (photo 2). If the surface is flush, perfect. If it’s not, adjust the bit and test again. Next, you can cut a test with the part flat up against the fence (photo 4). Do the same thing — cut the test piece apart and check it (photo 3). If the faces are flush, fit your first test together with the second one, and see if it’s a tight miter.

Once the set up is dialed in, you can rout your parts. You’re going to rout eight pieces in each orientation, both edges of each. This will yield enough parts to put together four perfectly quartersawn legs. I’m going to point out that I cut this locked miter (and many other parts later on) on my shaper—it’s a tool that’s been around a long time and I think is under utilized in the shop. Keep an eye out for a future article focused on shapers.

Now, the legs are glued together. The locked miter is self registering, so you just glue and clamp. You can see this in the photos below. After trimming the end and cutting the legs to final length, you’re left with a square leg with great grain all the way around. I outlined the joint line on one corner in photo 8 below, just so you can see how tight these come out. Of coures—you could chose to not be picky about your stock like I am, and either use 8/4 solid stock, or veneer the faces. I wont shame you for whatever you chose.

The Joinery

Before I start describing anything from a technique standpoint, I want to paint a broad picture of this desk and the joinery on it. Everything here is frame and panel construction. That means that the sides, the back, and the interior panels all use the same general joinery. We’ll talk about that in a bit. But first we need to prep the legs to fit some of the frame and panels, as well as some dividers.

This desk has four legs, as you may have deduced. All of the legs have grooves to fit tongues from the side or back panels. The front legs get a few notches for various reasons, as does the back left leg. What I’m getting at is that each leg has “shared” joinery (grooves for panels and corbels), but each leg is unique with it’s notches/mortises. Label the legs, as you’ll be making different joints in each.

Starting on the left hand side, the front and back legs each have a groove for the outside (left) panel, and a mortise near the bottom for bottom of the cubby. This mortise wraps around the corner of the leg.  The back left leg also has a groove on the inside face for the back panel.

Moving to the right hand side — again, both legs have a groove for the (right hand) panel, and the back right leg also has a groove on the inside face for the back panel. The front right leg has two mortises — one each for the upper and lower drawer divider. All four legs have a centered grove on the outside face for the corbels (added later).

Whew. I hope with the aide of the illustrations at the top that makes sense. Let’s chop some mortises. The four mortises (lower mortises on the left legs, and two on the front right leg) are chopped with a series of chisel wacks. After breaking up the fibers, I use a router plane to peel them out and leave a smooth bottom mortise (Photos 9-11).

Now, to address the grooves.  Here, I chucked up a spiral bit in the router table. Two things to point out: first, the panel grooves are not centered to create a reveal with the leg. Second, these grooves are stopped about 3/4 of the way down the leg. You can do this process with one setup however. One groove is done by feeding the leg right to left, running the leg to a stop block. The next groove is made by dropping the leg over the running bit, then routing through the top of the leg. This will avoid moving the fence and multiple setups. Swap the bit out and rout the grooves for the corbels.

Frame & Panels

Now, the meat and potatoes, so to speak. Frame and panels make up a bulk of the “volume” of the desk. Here again, I’m using my shaper, but this time to cut grooves. As you can see in Photos 13-15, I do this in several passes. (Bur oak is a chippy wood, and I found that two passes reduce this). I start by making a shallow pass at half-depth. I run this through twice, flipping the workpiece end-for-end. This makes sure the groove is centered. Then, I  use a setup block to dial in the final depth of the groove and make another set of passes. These grooves are made anywhere pieces meet—the inside of the rails, both edges of all of the interior stiles, and the inside edges of the outermost stiles. It’s a good amount of time at the shaper when all things are considered. While I’m here, I’m making the grooves for absolutely all of the parts—the outer panels, the back panel, the interior panels, and the door. It’s a lot of routing, but the shaper is a workhorse, and the dust collection makes it a clean task. I leave my Bluetooth headset on while listening to a book and working. It’s a happy place.

Once the parts are grooved, a series of stub tenons must be cut to fit into said grooves. My shaper bit came with both parts—a groove cutter and a tongue cutter. However, I centered the grooves, which made the necessary tongue a bit wider, so I cut the tongues at the table saw. You can see this in Photo 16 below. A dado blade buried in an auxiliary fence is the ticket here. I leave them just a hair thick and then spend a few minutes at the bench fine-tuning each tongue with a shoulder plane (photo 17). 

Now comes a dry fit. The panels that fit into the frame and panel are solid wood. (Not surprisingly, you can’t find “bur oak plywood,” so I resawed all of my panels). You want to test fit here—make sure the panels aren’t bottoming out and holding stuff apart. With mine being solid wood, I made sure to leave enough room for them to expand during the humid months. I also took a bit of time to pre-finish them. My finishing regime on this desk was pretty straightforward. I sanded everything to 240 grit, then wiped it down with denatured alcohol. After that flashed off, I used a 320-grit sponge to do one final buffing before applying Glancy’s No 1 Penetrating Oil. The stuff adds great color, but more importantly, it helps build up shellac quickly, which was my top coat. I cut the shellac back with some steel wool and dark paste wax to add a bit of character. 

After confirming everything fits and the panels are finished, they can be glued up. A bit of glue on each stub tenon (none on the panels) is all that you need. A few clamps across the panel hold it tight as the glue dries.

Once the panels dry, you can take them over to the table saw. The left, right, and back panels all get tongues cut on the ends of them—these fit into the grooves on the legs. Again, I cut these fat. I want to fine-tune these with my shoulder plane to make sure I get a good fit. When they do, I sand the entire panel and leg, and prefinish them before gluing them up. I sprayed a lot of my shellac, so I took time to apply blue tape to the mortises and any other glue surfaces. The few minutes of taping is a great trade-off for the amount of time I saved by spraying shellac after the Glancy’s oil dried. 

The main glue-ups are best done in steps. I first glued up left and right assemblies. The right legs are glued up to the right-hand panel and left to dry. Likewise, the left. While doing this, make sure that the top of the panels lines up with the top of the leg. Doing so it will help the top sit flat and tight on the finished desk. 

Then, once I was confident that glue was cured on the left and right assemblies, I added the back panel. This is a fairly long glue up, and required the longest clamps I had. If you need an excuse to buy a pair of long clamps, this is it. 

Once I had the back joint tight, I spent a few minutes taking several measurements. In theory, the tenon and groove joinery is self-squaring. However, in practice, stuff has a little flex. This is a natural material, after all. I found that the front of the desk was slightly more open than the back. So, I applied a pair of clamps across the front to pull everything square. You can find a photo of that on the Popular Woodworking Instagram page if you’re interested.

Fill it Out

At this point, you have a three-sided desk with floppy wings. The next steps are to attach the fronts together (somehow) and fill it out with the innards.

The front left, and right legs are connected via what I’m calling a “header rail.” This rail is dovetailed into the tops of each leg, and set back a 1/4“ for that reveal— we’re keeping that as a standard reveal all over. Here’s something to remember. This dovetail is hidden. You’ll never see it. It doesn’t matter if it’s sloppy, as long as the front shoulder is tight and it fits snugly. I cut the dovetail with a pull saw at the bench (photo 23). Then, clamping it on one end, I mark the opposite end with my marking knife.

A router and a straight bit hog away most of the waste. Just be careful, keep the router balanced, and work up close to the lines. Because this is end grain, the fibers pull away pretty well with a sharp bit. After the router work, I came in with a pair of chisels. A heavy butt chisel works to drop into the marking knife line for the final shape. My fishtail chisel cleans up the corners nicely. (It’s one of those tools that doesn’t always get used, but is the perfect tool when you need it). The steps were repeated on the opposite leg. After test fitting, I glued it in place and drilled a pilot hole for a screw.

Okay, sturdy base, check. Now it’s time to figure out what you want for storage. As I mentioned, the original one I found at auction had drawers both left and right. Instead of having that much “crap storage,” I wanted something to hide my PC. So, the left side was destined to become a cubby with a door. Because everything is made of hardwood, I started by gluing up the bottom of the cubby.

The cubby bottom is, more or less, a panel with a breadboard end. The breadboard end gives an edge-grain view when looking at the front of the desk. You can see a sneak peek of this bottom in photo 31. Now, back to photo 28. Remember those notches in the left leg? Those are to hold the corners of the cubby bottom. However, the cubby bottom also needs to be notched. I laid this out and cut it with a pull saw. It is captured in the mortise, so it doesn’t need to be pretty, just large enough for it to slip in.

The interior panel is glued up similarly to the outside panels. The biggest difference is that the outside stiles sit on the outside of the top and bottom rails. Again, this is for continuous edge grain the whole way down. These dimensions are also a bit different than the outside panels also — check out the illustration again at the top. While you’re working on these panels, notch the top corner to go around the header rail—visible in photos 31-33. The inside front face of the inner rail has a mortise for the keyboard divider—you’ll see this in photo 34 in a bit.

The cubby bottom and the interior panel are connected together at a right angle. I chose to use dominoes here. A series of 5 dominoes added plenty of strength to connect these panels together during assembly and this desk’s life. After pre-finishing, the cubby can be installed. Because the bottom of the cubby is made of solid wood, I let it float in the mortises and didn’t glue it in place. I want it to expand and contract as needed. To that point, I also left a bit of a gap between the left panel and the cubby bottom. This not only facilitates that movement but also adds a bit of airflow for the computer. The interior panel is attached to the header rail with a pair of screws. I’ll be honest — because I placed this desk up against the wall, I also drove a few screws from the back into the interior panel. If you wanted the back panel to be visible, you could use dominoes or dowels for a bit of extra support.

Corbels, Drawers & Top

All right, one interior cubby is done. Now, the next. The right-hand cubby is actually for a pair of drawers—a shallower top drawer and a double-deep drawer on the bottom. The interior panel here is the same as before. Notice in Photo 34 that you can see the keyboard divider mortise. This is chopped in the rail, and the keyboard divider has a small notch on the front and back to fit in with a clean look. This needs to be slipped into place (with glue) as the right-hand interior panel is installed. 

Now, for the drawer dividers. These are straightforward. The right-hand side of each is notched to fit into the mortises, as the cubby the bottom was. The end that meets the inside panel is attached with a pair of dominoes in each. Though, with everything in place, nobody would know if you use pocket screws to attach them. Use what you have. There’s a bit of finagling here to get the dominoes glued in place, the mortise glued, and the notches lined up, but it’s doable. Once everything’s in, clamp everything and turn your attention to the corbels.

The corbels are long and curved. They’re a great craftsman accent. I made a template up for mine (we’ll have that available to download as well).  After laying out the shape and roughing it out on the bandsaw, I used a pattern bit at the router table to make all of the corbels consistent. The corbels glue into the groove on the outside of the leg. What’s that? You noticed that there’s no groove on the outside of that leg in Photo 35? It’s not due to forgetting it during the milling stage. Definitely not. (Fine, it routed in just fine using an edge guide while the desk was 3/4 done, but it didn’t make me nervous at all…). The tongue is cut on the long edge of the corbels at the table saw using the dado blade.  Fine-tune it with the shoulder plane again, then clamp all of the corbels together to sand the curves. This keeps you from rounding over the edges. These get finished and glued in place on the outside of the legs. In that groove, that you did not forget to mill in them.

Now comes the show stopper. I think the top of any desk or table is one of the most important pieces. It’s the largest area and sees the most attention and use. I started with extra-thick stock. Trying to find 8/4 boards of bur oak that were relatively clean was a chore. However, luckily, I have a large stash and a skid loader to uncover some in my dried lumber stock. Even these have a brown “birthmark” on one of the boards. I like the character.

The top is milled to thickness in several stages to allow the wood to move how it wants. At the end of it, I had two halves of the top glued up and planned those down to the final thickness. Then, I did one final glue-up to complete the top. I took time here to add clamps and cauls to keep the two halves even. I was mostly successful, with only a small ledge where the two joined. And that’s okay—it gave me a chance to break out one of my vintage scrub planes and go to town. Side note—this plane in Photo 38 is a vintage Johann Weiss & Soh plane from Austria in the early 1900’s. I don’t use the European horned planes often (just not common on this side of the pond), but I do enjoy it. It has a great iron, and there’s something about wood-on-wood that I enjoy. After knocking off the ledge, I switched over to my smoothing plane to smooth out the surfaces you can feel. I left the scrubbed surface on the underside of the top, where you’d need to look for it. A little treat for future generations.

The top is attached with a series of Z-clips around the inside of the desk. I mount these into biscuit jointer slots — it’s easy to reach in and just zip them where needed.

Now comes the drawers and door. The drawers are nothing crazy. Standard dovetailed drawer boxes with false fronts. I dovetailed the boxes with my PantoRouter, but do it how you’d like. The false fronts are installed with screws, and the hardware is attached. Notice that the lower drawer has a faux divider across the face of the drawer. This gives the appearance of 3 drawers, but in reality, the bottom is a deep one. It is a fun little detail. The drawers are installed with bottom-mount drawer slides, screwed to the drawer dividers, and a mounting bracket in the back of the drawer case.

The keyboard tray tray needed a bit more thought than just a simple pull out. I wanted it to appear as a drawer, so that it matched the aesthetic. My solution is shown in Photos 47 and 48. A pair of butler hinges attach the tray to a front panel. This front panel is then attached to a false front, matching the look of the piece. A magnetic catch hold it vertical in the closed position when stored, but it lays flat when pulled out. 

The final piece of the puzzle is the door for the cubby. I wanted a door with some ventilation for the computers. I opted for a decorative cutout. Some of you may recognize this image as the icon of the one that grew in the court of the fountain in Minas Tirith. I’d provide a template for this, but I’m afraid Peter Jackson may come after me if I do. The pattern is printed out and applied to a panel. A few hours at the scroll saw left me with a door panel that I am pleased with. (I’m a big Lord of the Rings fan; what can I say). The panel is installed in a door frame made with the same tongue and groove joinery as the rest of the desk panels. I bought a nice pair of butt hinges to install the door. The stiles were mortised at the table saw. First, set the blade to match the hinge leaf thickness. Then, just nibble it away until it’s full width. Positioning the door for mounting was done with a few of the 3D-printed spacers that I showed in my Editor’s letter. You know, the last desk I really built was back in high school. That desk is still floating around somewhere today. I’d like to think that both of these will be floating around at some auction in a hundred years, inspiring another woodworker.

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