My mother retired a few years ago and picked up quilting as a retirement hobby. Just like my woodworking, her quilting is taking over my parents house and has gotten to the point where none of the work surfaces were good enough for her anymore. I guess her seeing my desktop I made last year sparked something in her and she asked if I could make her a custom desk for her quilting and occasional ironing. I try to be a good son and this sounded like a fun challenge so naturally I accepted her request.

We spent a month or so working on the design. She had some requirements due to how she would use this desk and where it was placed, but most importantly I would have to drive this desk in my little Mazda 3 hatchback from the SF bay area down to San Diego, and then do the final assembly in my parents garage. Since the desk would be wider than my car’s insides are long I knew I would have to build the top in 2 pieces and attach them in SD. There were no issues with the 2 side leg structures, but I did go ahead and split the rear of the desk into 3 rectangles so that I may incorporate another design request, some bent slat art like I’ve done in some of my other stuff I’ve made for myself.

Since this project wasn’t for myself I decided to burst out my rusty CAD skills and draw this in 3D so my mom has a better idea of what I am envisioning. She was in love with the first renderings, but still had some design changes, as expected. My mom couldn’t stop sharing the quick renders with her quilting buddies who were all excited and anticipating the final pics.

We decided to use Cherry for the base and random woods for the top. The random woods I already had but the cherry I did not so I ordered what I needed online. It was already milled to almost the sizes I needed which was great and made it easy to build my parts.

I started with the 3 back pieces since they are simple rectangles and had what I thought was the easy slat work. The center rectangle had a swoopy design made of slat which I decided should be Bocote. I also spent extra attention to keep the slats in order so the grain continues between slats, though that is hard to see. The real hardest part was setting everything up so I could cut slats that are the exact same width as the saw blade cut is wide. Gluing them in is fairly easy as long as that was done well but super hard if the slats are too thick or too thin. A few tiny nails help keep the slats in place while the glue dries.
The center square all went smoothly so I turned my attention to the 2 side squares. These had a pattern which I called the Georgia O'Keeffe pattern which I decided to make out of alternating maple and walnut slats. I sadly made these slats a hair too thick so I had to sand every single one down until it fit in its hole. So much sanding… I also had a some of the slats not enjoy the bend I was asking of it and wouldn’t fully seat in its hole. I did gently hammer them down but did not want to go too hard for fear of snapping the slats. Thankfully that never happened, but not all fully seated.

The 2 side leg pieces were essentially figure 8s with legs. Originally the slats were going to go through both of the holes but a last minute request kept them to just the top hole section. Some quilts will be built to fill in those lower holes! I had now learned plenty on how to build these frame pieces so the legs went smoothly. I reused the extra slats and cutoffs from the previous steps and went with a simple repeating pattern, mirrored on the left and right sides. I also installed some threaded inserts in the base of the legs so I could later add some adjustable feet, in case the floor isn’t level or my mom wants to raise/lower the desk but just a little bit.

I used a big piece of cherry as a brace on the open side of the desk. I know my mom likes to lean on things and she would be working on this desk so I wanted to make sure it would bent as little as possible if weight was applied on the top surface. I went ahead and carved out a groove in the middle in case she ever wanted to sit in the middle part of the desk using a tall chair. I also made a little shelf which ended up using a piece of really nice curly cherry.

A request for the top was to use a bunch of different woods and to clean out anything I had. I gathered a bunch of cool looking pieces that were long and thick enough for this top. After cleaning them up and making them all the same thickness I organized them in a way I thought looked cool. I also went ahead and added some thin strips of Padauk so that they would be exactly 12, 18, 24, and 36 inches away from the top’s edge, to make it easy for my mom to measure cloth to these common length. Overall this step felt very much like making 2 over sized cutting boards. Biggest difference is these took me 3~4 hours to sand in total.

At this point I had run out of time and completed all the steps that required the use of one of my big tools in my workshop. I packed up everything I needed in my car and headed down to my folk’s home. I finished up a few things in the frame pieces then glued them all together. I then added some curves and round overs to the 2 top pieces, finally gluing them together into a single top.

I finished everything with some Rubio Monocoat since it is rather easy to apply and cures fairly quickly. I never get tired of seeing the colors pop as the finish is applied. I even managed to rope in my mom to help with applying the finish! We left everything in the garage to cure for a day or 2 before I attached the top to the frame using some Z clips. We moved it into its final resting place in the living room and my mom couldn’t wait to start setting up her stuff in the desk and using it. I had to ask her to wait until I could take come photos first!