How much time does it take to make a desk and chair?
Time varies with experience but it should take around 2-3 hours to make a desk or a chair. This does not include the time for glue to set and dry, however. Making a chair involves gluing up the boards for the seat and letting that cure for at least 12 hours before finish sanding it and attaching it to the chair.
How much does it cost to make a desk or a chair?
We try to buy lumber in bulk since larger sheets of plywood are cheaper than buying the quarter sheets called for in the build plans. However, if following the plans, the cost to make a chair and desk combo is around $45 at most lumber stores. This includes lumber, brad nails, and glue.
How sturdy are the desks and chairs?
As designed, these desks and the chairs are more than sturdy enough to accommodate young students in their daily activities. However, they are not built to support the weight of adults. Neither the chairs nor the desks should ever be used as “step stools” or similarly.
Can I request a desk in a specific color?
These items are gifted “as is”. That means each one is sanded and finished and ready to paint or to decorate in any manner its recipient chooses. We feel that this is in keeping with the notion that each child should make their own personalized study space in the home. We also are focused on producing desks as fast as we can keep up with the demand and painting requires an inordinate amount of time.
We do understand that some may not have the resources to do their own painting or decorating. We will take any request to paint a desk under consideration as we grow the organization and work with more volunteers. We may host special decoration events in the future where recipients can come and decorate their desks before taking them home, with materials provided by us. Let us know if that would be of interest to you.
How do you decide who receives these desks? What is the process?
This has been the hardest task to work out. We hear from people in the community who need these for their children, either directly through Facebook, this website, email, or because relatives contact us on their behalf.
We are not trained social workers and don’t conduct interviews to verify the needs of those who ask. We take people on their word as a matter of trust.
To that end, we have a growing list of people awaiting desks on a first-come, first-serve basis. At this point we only accept new requests through this website via the request form and by sending a request to our specific email address, request@communitydeskproject.org. Please see the “Request A Desk” page for instructions.
We may review our processes in the future and we are open to suggestions.
Do you provide the plans so we can build our own desk and chair?
Yes, we do! We strongly encourage anyone with the tools and skills to build their own desks. These are simple and do not require an extensive collection of tools to build.
Follow the link for “THE DESKS” or click here to download the plans of your choice.