Building A Massive L-Shaped Desk For A Better Workflow, More Monitors & Space

For the Phoronix 12th birthday and in trying to make a more efficient workflow and some general improvements to reinvigorate my general 100 hour work weeks across the span of Phoronix Media, I decided to set out on building a new desk this past week. Here's the result with having a massive, 8 and 10 foot sides to a L-shaped wooden and steel desk.

This post isn't directly related to Linux, but hey, I can call my desk design open-source. As many Phoronix readers were interested in my basement server room build and building a butch block computer desk articles, I figured I'd write up my latest related build for those interested in expanding their work area.

As most Phoronix readers know, for the past ~6+ years I've been mostly using a combination of these sub-$100 USD L-shaped glass desks that have served me well for many years. But I was looking for something bigger, stronger, and the wife was getting tired of these desks too. So I set out to build a new desk for myself and also building her a similar desk now too in our office. Building the desks as opposed to buying due to being cheaper, I can customize the desk as I see fit, and construction remains one of my few ways to relieve stress and relaxation.

Similar to the butcherblock desk I built in the server room earlier this year, my new desk was comprised of two 25-inch x 8-foot sheets of 1.5-inch thick Baltic birch wood. For forming the L-shaped desk at the end I used a series of pocket holes/screws and glue. That appeared to do the trick with 16 2.5-inch screws in the pocket holes, but I also added two steel plates underneath the joint for additional reinforcement.

I bound the two sheets of butcherblock prior to sanding and staining in order to provide a very clean finish -- albeit a royal pain to move with the wood weighing in at around 180 lbs and being very bulky. I ended up having to remove the panes to one of the windows in my office in order to slide the finished slab inside. For the desk I also built a lower 4-foot long shelf also of birch butcherblock.