My First Woodworking Project

I wanted to make myself a desk!

I bought this live edge slab of Walnut awhile ago, in hopes of turning it into a desk. It was my very first woodworking project, and when I started, I knew almost nothing. I spent hours diving into YouTube videos, woodworking websites, forums, and hardware store websites researching tools. As nervous as I felt when I first started taking off the bark and sanding, I knew that the only way to learn was by jumping in headfirst and getting my hands dirty.

I had a vision of using a rich dark stain for the desk, that would still allow the natural colors of the walnut to show through. I think I spent an entire week at Ace Hardware picking out different colors of stain, until I found one that I loved!

My favorite part was discovering these wormholes after I had taken off the bark. Each one was unique, and they spanned both sides of my slab. At first, I was debating whether I should remove them by sanding them out - I had wanted a clean, polished look for my desk. However, after some input from friends and family, I decided to leave them and enjoyed that they added a unique character to the desk.

I certainly learned a lot along the way, and those lessons may show on the desk, but I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out. The list of woodworking projects has now drastically expanded and I can’t wait to get started on the next project!

The transformation of stages below: