How to Make a Child's Desk and Shelving

This next HouseCall took Ron to the horse capital of the world: Lexington, Kentucky. It is here that Steve and Donna Hoertz live with their children, seven-year-old Tanner and five-year-old Caroline. Caroline had a large desk and shelving unit in her bedroom but Tanner's room did not. Ron came to help even things out by creating a wall-mounted desk and shelving set ideal for a young boy.

Click Here For a list of what you will need in order to complete this project.

1. Drawings:

• Based on his conversations with the family, Ron came with a drawing he had prepared. The unit they were about to build would have shelves on both sides and a desk across the bottom.
• View, download and print Ron's desk and shelving unit drawings

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• They began by moving everything out of the room. Once that was accomplished, Donna and Steve used electronic stud finders to locate, then mark, each of the studs on the wall where they would be installing the shelving unit.
  

• Onto these studs, they would attach four standards, or wooden strips. Onto the standards, they would then mount moveable support brackets for the desk and shelves.

3. Cut wood:

• They went outside to where Ron had set up his compound miter saw. He had already cut the standards to length, but he thought it would be nice to give them a decorative touch by making a chamfer, or angled cut on each end.

• He marked the cut with a pencil and then cut the excess piece off using the power miter box.

• After a getting a few tips from Ron on operating the saw, Donna cut the first chamfer.

4. Hole boring:

• The next step was to bore a row of holes through the sides of each standard. They would then drill matching holes in each shelf bracket, slip the bracket over the standard and secure the bracket to the standard by driving in dowels.

• In order to make sure those holes were evenly spaced, Ron made up a boring jig out of plywood.

• He laid the jig on top of the standard, made sure the end was flush and then lined up the two pieces on the edge of the table.

• They used a couple of clamps to secure the boring jig to the tabletop.

• With the jig clamped in place, they were ready to begin drilling. A portable drill press attached to the hand drill helped keep the drill bit straight up and down. This was necessary to make certain that the holes they drilled now would align with those they would drill in the bracket later.

• Next, they drilled a second set of holes on the front of each standard. These were for the lag screws that would attach the standards to the wall.

• First, Donna drilled larger countersink holes, which would allow the screwheads to sit below the surface.

• Steve followed behind drilling shank holes that went all the way through. Then they were ready to move back inside for installation.

5. Shelf standard installation:

• Steve and Ron held the standard in place, while Ron ran a drill bit through the shank hole just far enough to make a locator mark on the wall.