DIY Storage Desk For Home Office

In this post, I’m sharing how to build a DIY storage desk with drawers. This would be a perfect addition to your home office!

This desk is packed full of storage with 9 drawers–four on each side and a shallow center drawer to store things like USB drives, writing utensils, glasses, and more.

This desk is simple in design, but the trim details make all the difference to give it a “dressed up” traditional style.

The great thing about trim and molding is that you can customize it however you wish to change the overall vibe or style of the piece.  Keep it simpler for a more modern feel or go more ornate for a fancier feel.

Because it’s trimmed on all sides (even the front!), it can sit in the middle of an office with the front visible, but it also works well against a wall, too. 

If your desk could use an upgrade, I’ll show you how to build this one in the steps below.

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**This project was built and this post was originally published April 2019. This post was updated April 2025.

What to know before building

This DIY storage desk is not difficult to build, but with all the trim detail and the different size drawers, I’d consider it an intermediate level DIY project.

The overall dimensions of this storage desk are approximately 22″ deep x 30 ½″ tall x 72″ wide.

How to build a Storage Desk with Drawers

If you prefer to watch, I’ve shared the full build video with tons of tips, behind the scenes, and additional details on my YouTube Channel here.

Love watching how-to videos? Subscribe to my YouTube channel for plenty more where that came from!

Prefer to print? Grab the printable storage desk building plans here:

Tools & Materials

Step 1: Assemble Desk Cabinets

This desk is essentially made of two cabinets. Of course, it has a front and a top as well, but everything is kind of built on and around these two cabinets. So that’s what I built first.

The two desk cabinets are made from ¾″ plywood. So, first, I began cutting down my plywood sheets. I needed two side panels, a bottom panel and two support strips for each cabinet.

Learn how to cut plywood here.

You can find the full cut list and plywood cut diagrams with dimensions in the printable storage desk plans here.

Once my plywood was cut down, I drilled ¾” pocket holes along the bottom and back edges of my side panels.

RELATED: How to drill pocket holes

It’s important to note here that the holes on the two side panels for each cabinet should be mirrored. That way, once assembled, all pocket holes will be on the INSIDE of the cabinet.

Once the pocket holes were drilled, I started assembling the cabinets using wood glue and pocket hole screws. I screwed the sides of the cabinet into the bottom piece of the cabinet like shown making sure the pocket holes were on the inside.

Then, I cut attached two support strips between the side panels at the front and back corners using pocket holes and screws.  These will serve as support pieces and a place to screw through later to attach the top.

Next, I glued and screwed these furniture feet to the bottom corners of each cabinet.  You could use another style of foot here if you wanted.

To finish up these desk cabinets, I assembled a face frame to cover the front side. I built this ¾″ WIDER than my cabinet boxes and I used 1x2s for the sides, 1x3s for the top and bottom, and a ¾″ square dowel for the drawer divider..

I assembled the frame using wood glue and pocket hole screws.

Then, I glued and nailed the face frames onto the front of each cabinet box. I mentioned that I made the face frames ¾″ wider than the cabinets, so I installed these so that they overhung one side of the cabinet ¾″.

This is so that later, when I attach the trim onto the sides of the desk, it kind of “meshes” with the trim.  It will overhang OPPOSITE sides of each cabinet.  So the overhang will be on the left side of the left cabinet and the right side of the right cabinet.

Step 2: Attach Desk Cabinets Together

Now that the cabinets were built, I needed to attach them together to make the desk base.

For the front side of the desk I cut a large piece of ¾″ plywood and laid it on the ground. Then, I laid both desk cabinets on top of it and secured them with pocket hole screws through the pocket holes I drilled along the back edge of each side panel.

I made sure the sides of my cabinets where the face frame had the overhang were on the OUTSIDE of the desk, not the inside.

Then, I cut a piece of 1×3 to attach between the cabinets at the front, top corners. I secured this using pocket holes and screws from the inside (so the pocket holes will be hidden).

Prefer to print? Grab the printable plans complete with cut list, dimensions, and diagrams here.

Step 3: Trim Desk Sides and Front

Now it was time to dress this desk up a bit. I glued and nailed 1x3s and 1x2s around the front and sides of the desk to give it some dimension.

Remember that overhang on the face frames? When I added this trim along the front of the side panels, since these 1xs are ¾″ thick, it should come flush at the joint.

I glued and nailed 1x3s vertically at each corner and along the top and bottom around both sides and the front. Then, I glued and nailed 1x2s a few inches down from the top.

This trim just adds some extra detail to the desk. Feel free to customize however you’d like.

Step 4: Attach Storage Desk Top

Next, I cut a piece of ¾″ plywood for the top panel that was about 2″ wider than the depth of my desk base and about 2″ longer than the width of my desk base.

That allows for a 1″ overhang on all sides of the desk. I applied iron on edge banding to all the edges of this panel to give it a cleaner look.

RELATED: How to apply iron on edge banding

Then I centered the top onto the desk base and used 1 ¼″ wood screws up through the top supports of the desk cabinets to attach.

Step 5: Build and Install Desk Drawers

Because the face frame overhangs the inside edge of the desk cabinets on one side, in order for the slides to work there, I needed to install some spacer blocks so the slides could mount flush to the inside edge of the face frame. 

So for the INSIDES of both cabinets, where the face frame wasn’t flush with the inside of the cabinet, I attached some 1x2s to mount the drawer slides on.

Then, I installed 9 pair of ball bearing drawer slides–four in each cabinet and one in the middle, between the two cabinets.

RELATED: How to install side mount drawer slides.

Where there was a spacer block, I installed my slides on them.  Otherwise, I installed the slides directly onto the inside of the cabinet.

Then, I built all 9 drawer boxes. Learn how to build a drawer box here.

This drawer required three different sizes of drawers–6 larger drawers to go into the bottom sections of each cabinet, 2 smaller drawers to go into the top section of each cabinet, and a shallow, but wider drawer box to go in the middle.

All drawer dimensions can be found in the printable plans.

I assembled my drawer boxes using pocket holes and screws, then I installed them into the desk.

RELATED: How to install drawer boxes

Then, I cut my drawer fronts from ¾″ plywood and edge banded all sides. Edge banding is optional, but it makes it much cleaner looking and easier to paint.

I tacked the drawer fronts onto my drawer boxes with a couple of brad nails, making sure to leave about ⅛″ gap around all sides.

Then, I removed them from the desk, labeled each box (so I know where to put it back!), and secured the drawer fronts with a couple screws from the inside.

Step 6: Add Trim Detail and Finish

This additional trim is totally optional, but it really gives a “fancy” look to the desk and adds a lot of detail and dimension.

I cut to fit base cap molding around the top, and I used 2 ¼” door facing for the “baseboard” around the bottom.  Then, on the insides of all my trim pieces, I lined it with cove molding. I just glued and brad nailed all the molding in place.

I also added some half round molding  along the ¾″ dowel piece on the face frame and around the sides and front.

I used wood putty to cover all nail holes, and clean up any corners or joints that weren’t perfect. I also added a bead of caulk on the inside corners where needed.

Once everything was dry, I sanded and smoothed out all the putty/filler, then primed and painted the desk and the drawer fronts. (TIP: Keep the drawers removed after step 5 and paint them separately.)

RELATED: How to paint DIY furniture

After the paint was dry, I attached knobs to the drawers and installed them back into the desk.

And with that, this desk is ready for work! I loved the way this turned out and how the molding makes it pop.  And I also love that this desk has SO MUCH STORAGE.  ,

So if your office could use a fancy, new desk, don’t forget to check out the plans and YouTube video.

Looking for more home office DIY projects?

Here are a few of my favorite home office DIY projects you might also enjoy browsing and building. Click on the image(s) below to see how to build each one:

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Until next time, friend, happy building!