A Custom Desk Built by Dummies

Poorly-designed furniture leg

The phrase "jerry-built" has a longish history, but for most of its existence it's referred to poorly or cheaply constructed items, stuff that wouldn't hold up under everyday use. We have no idea who Jerry was or why he's slandered in this manner, but them's the breaks. The reason we're here today, however, is that one of the staffers turned up a modern-day Jerry, at least based on one of her eHow posts. She's Kasandra Rose, and her topic (now at HomeSteady.com) was "How to Make a Melamine Desk."

Unlike many eHow contributors, Rose didn't bother to try to fake a reference to instructions for her desk, just cited some OSHA guidelines for office safety. There's probably a good reason for the lack of a reference: no thinking person would build a desk like Kasandra says to. It's only a little removed from the good old concrete block and board shelves you remember from your first apartment...

According to Rose, you use 4-by-4s for the legs, chunks of cheap wood held to the bottom of a 2-foot by 5-foot sheet of melamine (where you're supposed to get that she doesn't say). The jerry-built (or perhaps we should say most jerry-built) part is how she says to attach the legs:

• "Measure 4 inches in from each side at each corner and make a mark."
• "Position a leg so that it fits against the L mark and line up 4 L-brackets, one against each side of the leg. Insert two 1-inch wood screws through each L-bracket into the leg..."
• "Secure the L-bracket to the bottom of the melamine sheet with 3/4-inch particle board screws. Turn your desk upright and position where desired."

Yup, that's it: four legs screwed to the bottom of a hunk of particle board with angle brackets. That oughta hold up... for about a week.

No, Kasandra, you need more than just some cheap-ass angle brackets. First, you should have an apron on the bottom of the melamine sheet, because that's a lot sturdier than some crummy angle brackets. Second, you need support for the legs at the bottom; a way to keep them from spreading and wracking sideways whenever there's even a little stress on the desktop. Oh, yeah, and it sure wouldn't hurt to have some sort of edge covering on the particle board, since it's prone to chipping. [Hint: you can buy melamine edge banding...]
Build a desk following the instructions dashed off by our Dumbass of the Day, and you're gonna need a new desk in no time...

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