CARLTON HOUSE DESK DESIGN

For my day-job I work at Karges Furniture. I've been there since 1990, first as a wood carver, and then moved into the engineering department. Recently I was allowed to design my first piece of furniture. I've always liked Carlton House desks so that's what I chose as my first project. What I like about Carlton House style desks are the walls of tiny doors and drawers curling around the guys who sit at them. It feels very private and personal, and nice if you need to concentrate.

Now that more and more people are using laptop computers, I suspect old-fashioned desks like these will make a comeback. People don't really need giant computer desks with printer, scanner and tower cavities anymore. Now with Wi-Fi the printer can be put anywhere, even in another room.

This desk uses mahogany solids, with mahogany and prima vera veneers. The white inlay lines are holly tree wood. Before applying stain to this desk, all the holly inlay lines had to be covered with a frisket, which is sort of like liquid latex rubber. This prevented the stain from darkening those places. After the stain had cured the frisket could then be removed by simply rubbing it off with fingers. The frisket-appliers cussed me real good for all those skinny lines.
I like secret compartments a lot. I'm not gonna say exactly where there might be secret compartment in this desk, but there could be some surprises here and there, on the inside. Those are not secret compartments on the sides in the photo above. They're much sneakier than that!

Above is a closeup of the inlay work. To make the shading on the white strips of holly, the tips of each piece were placed in hot sand until they were burned dark enough.

I'd love to own one of these desks since it was made to possess all the elements I personally love, but I'm gonna have to save a while to be able to afford one. They cost as much as a car.