# Pallet Desk

As I finished up my sophomore year at university, I realized that I needed my own desk. At that point I had lived in three different apartments. All 3 of them had desks provided, and all of those desks were mediocre at best, downright broken at worst. What's worse is at the time I worked from home, which meant I *needed* a reliable desk. With the summer about to hit, and plans to work full-time from home, I knew I needed something fast. Here's the end result:

![IMG OF FINISHED DESK](/img/writeup/palletDesk/finished-1-sm.jpg)

Before we get into this build, I will note that I'm writing this guide > 2 years later. This means I have forgotten some details of the build process, but have also have the gift of hindsight thanks to this desk being my main piece of furniture for the last 2.5 years. Like seriously, I eat, study and work at this thing everyday.

## Plans

### Requirements

Before I started building I had to think through what I wanted. I came up with some basic ideas:

- I didn't need storage. Drawers would be difficult and expensive to integrate, and I don't think they look that good anyways.

- It needed to be cheap. I had a job as a software engineer at the time, but it did not pay much at all. The desk couldn't eat too much of my budget.

- Durability. I wanted a desk that could last me a long time. Like 5+ years. I'm unsure if I'll actually use it for that long, but I'm confident it could last.

- Portability. During the planning stages I had already moved twice and was about to move a third time. I needed a desk that wouldn't be a hassle to move. I designed the desk so that it could be easily torn down by one person, and fit inside my Toyota Camry. Ironically, I haven't moved since I finished building the desk, but I have still had occasion to tear it down and move it, which is surprisingly convenient.

- Sitting/Standing. I'm a decently tall person. Measuring in at around ~6'5" (2m), I'm not a huge fan of short things. I like sitting in high chairs where my legs can dangle. I wanted something similar in a desk that would allow me to stand or sit depending on what I was feeling.

### Design

With the requirements thought out, I started planning how I was going to build everything. Between planning/designing I probably spent a month or two just *thinking* about how I would build the desk. I spent a lot of time online looking at what other people have done. Seeing other peoples designs is the one reason I currently have a Pinterest account.

There were some really cool designs online, but I needed something simple. This was my first woodworking project, and I knew I *would* (hehe) be making a lot of mistakes. All of these thoughts culminated into a single whiteboard sketch:

![Whiteboard sketch of ititial design](/img/writeup/palletDesk/plans-1-sm.jpg)

Yep. That's it. It was all a lot clearer in my head. Essentially the red 'rectangles' are 2x4 cross beams that would support the desktop and create a structure to build onto. The measurements were mainly based on what would fit in my Camry. Note: this only fits in the car when I put the back seats down so the desk can go through the trunk and into the back of the car. pics further down. I also measured a few desks nearby to see what an appropriate depth for a monitor + keyboard would be.

## Build

### Pallet Aquisition

There are a lot of guides on how to get pallets online. If you're in the US, check the free section of Craigslist or your local classifieds. You can also just walk into local places and ask if they have any pallets that you can use. Alternatively, just drive behind businesses and see if they have pallets stacked near the dumpster. 

If you have a smaller car, be prepared to potentially tear down the pallet on site. Pallets were a bit larger than I expected and some of them would not fit in my car! Because of this, I had to pass up on some of the nicer pallets out there. In all, I think this project took 2-3 pallets. It could be done with less, but my teardown methods were less than ideal.

The problem with pallet wood is that it's a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes you get a really new pallet that is made out of decent wood, sometimes you get a pallet that's a few years old and on the verge of fallng apart. Sourcing newer pallets should be your priority. I didn't bother doing so and paid the price through many stages of the build.

### Pallet Teardown

The best way to get usable wood from a pallet is to use a jig saw. Period. If you don't have one, buy one online or borrow a friends. It's worth it especially if you want to do a lot of projects like this. With a jig saw, it's very easy to align the blade between the pallet planks and cut through the nails holding them in place. If you have room to spare, you could also use a table saw and just cut off the pallet planks before they're nailed into the base. 

If you're a poor college student as I was, the other option is a crowbar, hammer and *a lot* of patience. With this method you need to jimmy the crow bar in between the pallet plank and base and slowely wedge out the nails holding the plank in place. Making sure you dont strain one end of the plank too much and crack it. This is a delicate process that takes a long time and often ends in breaking the pallet planks much to the despair of the builder. 

Because of this expense of learning, Perhaps only 50% of the 3 pallets I had turned out usable. Unfortunately I don't have any images of this stage of the process likely due to the rage-inducing nature of it all. I worked on this portion of the project at night after getting home from school across a couple of days.

### Building the desktop

Finally, with all the pallets torn down, I had wood I could start working with. I started out by building the basic frame of the desktop, cutting pallet base 2x4's to size and joining them at 45deg on the corners. This was stupid. Getting perfect 45deg angles to come together and hold well is not easy, especially if you don't know what you're doing. It looks okay in the end product, but if I were todo it again, I would have done simpler, more reliable corners.

![Main frame rectangle](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-1-sm.jpg)

As I was starting, a friendly neighbor came over to see what I was working on and lent me these corner clamps. Regardless of the join you're doing, I think these could be pretty helpful

![Closeup of corner clamps](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-2-sm.jpg)

Fortunately, the crappy corners are mitigated by the cross beams that run the width of the desktop. For these I decided to go with new 2x4's. I realize this is against the spirit of the whole project, but at this point I was *not* about to teardown another pallet for 2x4s. Additionally, the rest of the entire desktop would be secured into these, so they needed to be non-horrible.

Basically every piece of this project is secured by a combination of wood glue and screws.

Also, for this entire project, wood was cut to size using my friends chop saw. Not sure what I would've done without it. (I mean everything *could* be done with a hand saw... but).

![Desktop frame with crossbeams](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-3-sm.jpg)

![Closeup of desktop frame with crossbeams](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-4-sm.jpg)

With the basic frame in place, it was time to start building the visible part of the desktop. I started by bordering the exterior with pallet plants to make something like a picture frame for the middle. The chop saw came in handy, helping make angles that match. 

![Desktop border mostly in place](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-5-sm.jpg)

![Closeup of desktop border slightly missaligned](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-6-sm.jpg)

From this angle it looks like the border is slightly, missaligned, but I dont ever notice this and it seems to be fine. Notice that there is a ~1" lip off the edge of the frame. The main reason for this was to keep some of the frame exposed so the middle of the destop could be secured to it. But also because it looks cool.

With the border completed, I could move on to filling in the middle of the desktop. Before doing this, glued and stapled down some crate paper, in the hopes that it would help retain any epoxy that slipped through once it was time for that.

Once the crate paper was secured I started cutting and fitting pallet planks. I would cut one at a time to test the fit and make sure it was tight. Then I would line the edges and bottom with glue, push it into its general location and use a mallet to nudge it as far to the right as possible. Below is the partially completed top (note the exposed crate paper on the left side):

![Partially finished desktop](/img/writeup/palletDesk/build-7-sm.jpg)

Once a single board was pushed to the far right side, It would be secured on the 3 2x4 frame pieces with screws.