I shared in the post John Builds Himself a Desk that John, the self-taught woodworker living in my house (ha), built himself a Mission-style desk using images from the web to inspire him.
Well John decided he wanted to replace our existing file cabinet, that we got for free secondhand, with a printer stand/file cabinet combo piece.
So he developed a design and went to work building it:
And here is the resulting piece!
The two drawers on the right of the piece are set up as file cabinet drawers, while the drawer under the printer is a storage drawer. I forgot to take a photo of it but the area under the printer pulls out for easier access to the printer!
We are pretty excited about it and we had fun purging old files and arranging our files in the new file cabinet drawers.
Did you notice the old computer sitting on the new printer stand/file cabinet? Well that’s the computer that John built with his Dad when he was 10 years old. John spent a career as a computer software architect and it all started with him learning to build a computer with his father as a kid.
Oh and what became of the secondhand file cabinet we no longer needed? Well serendipitously we discovered our neighbor across the street, a new father trying to keep up with life, desperately needed a file cabinet!
So John brought it over to his house and made him very happy!
tierneycreates 
OK, the new furniture is nice, but I especially love the computer-built-as-a-kid story! I show John’s projects to my woodworker and he has a question: why pine? (vs. maple, etc)
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Glad you enjoyed it, it definitely set him out on his career path. John will answer his question when he reviews the comment later, I’d just be making up an answer 😉
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This is John,
In Colorado we do not have walnut and oak that grows locally so this piece cost me less than 100 dollars in wood with pine. in Oak or Walnut it would cost at least 400 dollars in wood. additionally I like how pine looks. I do use a polyurethane finish that helps a little to battle the soft pine.
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Hi John, I wondered if it had something to do with your geographic location. We are fortunate to have oak that we had milled when our lot was cleared. When we aren’t that lucky, hardwoods are indeed expensive! Thanks for your response and I look forward to seeing more of your work.
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That is so cool, and very useful. The printer isn’t taking up space on the desk but is handy when you want it
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Thanks so much and it was a feature I wouldn’t even have thought about!
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I really wanted to free up desk space getting the printer out of the way was a big add.
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Gorgeous work by John. I’m so impressed. I have zero carpentry skills. And how wonderful to find a neighbor that needs your file cabinent,
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Thanks so much we really appreciate your comment 🙂
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win win to find the right home foe the old cabinet – and oh my gosh- the new one matches the mission style desk so well! John is talented
also, that comouter he helped build is a gem and I am glad you pointed it out – John was sure into computers at a young age!
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Oh yes we are very pleased! Thanks so much and he has transferred his computer software brain into woodworking now 🙂
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🙂
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Thanks,
I really like to build things. first computers now anything with wood.
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how satisfying! the sense of achievement, of designing then building . . . well done John!
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Thanks on behalf of John (he plans to read the comments and you might get a comment from him later) 🙂
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Claire, Thanks,
I really get a big rush desiging and building.
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Wow, I love it!
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Thanks so much 🙂
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Beautiful! My husband hopes to do some woodworking when he retires at the end of this year. He only does small projects so far due to time and space constraints, but I have so many things for him to work on…
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You Tube has a wealth of knowledge and John got most of his training from it, plus just experimenting 🙂
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Nice work again, John. The new set up looks really nice. Love that he still has that first computer, and that you could help out a new dad by giving him the old file cabinet. Good stuff!
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Thanks so much on behalf of John 🙂
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What a great desk, John is very handy and talented. That’s the best when you can rebuild an d build things like this. Very organized too.
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