Desk height when there's a center drawer?

[atgcpaul]

I'm making a built-in desk that will have a center drawer. So the desktop has to be tall enough so the drawer can be slid open partially while seated, but not so tall that it's uncomfortable to use. Any general rules of thumbs for dimensions?

The drawer will slide on undermount drawer slides but I'm already thinking there won't be a box surrounding the drawer so I don't lose height there.

Thanks
Paul

[DaveR1]

Typical desktop height would be around 29 or 30 inches. Sit on the chair you plan to use and measure to the tops of your knees. Add a couple or three inches to that height to give you comfortable clearance. The difference will be what you have for the desktop and drawer.

Are you planning to use the drawer for a keyboard or for pencils and stuff?

To maximize useful depth in the drawer, you could skip the undermount drawer slides. Use a more traditional drawer design with kickers and runners. Make the runners from aluminum angle with Delrin or Teflon strips to make the drawer slide easily. If you want a drawing of that, I could make one for you.

[atgcpaul]

Dave, thanks for the guidelines.  I'll go with 29" and work down from there.  My desk at work is 29" with a keyboard drawer and it feels good to me at 6'.  My wife is 5'4".  This desk is actually a separate vanity area I'm building for my wife in the master bedroom--maybe lipstick, compacts, and eyeshadow--smallish items.  She currently has all her makeup stuff in a small organizer in the space between (and over onto my side) our double sink vanity.  Hopefully she'll store bulkier stuff like her contact solution, etc, in the drawers I'm building into the new double vanity.  I bought an extra undermount slide for this purpose  so I'll see if I can't still use that here, but I like the simplicity of your suggestion.  I have a mental picture in my head.  I know she'll appreciate the soft close feature of the Blum slides more, though.

I actually don't have the chair yet, but was thinking about modifying Mark Edmundson's Danish cord bench into a narrower chair.  Coincidentally, that article is in the same FWW article featuring Sketchup where one of your designs is cited.

Paul

[DaveR1]

I like the idea of modifying that bench into a stool. Years ago I did a SketchUp model of that bench. Haven't thought about it for a long time, though. I wonder if I still have it.

Understood on the soft close slides.

[MichaelMouse]

Start with the height of the chair seat. Normally ~19 today.  Eight more for your thighs, then your drawer.

[jteneyck]

I built a makeup vanity a couple of years ago with a center drawer.  The top is at 28-3/4", and the bottom of the drawer is at 23-3/8".  I designed it for a 16" high stool.  

Dining tables are usually 29 - 30" high.  Some designs have shallow drawers in the aprons.  If the top is 1" thick and the aprons 4", you are down to 24 - 25" at the bottom of the apron.  With a typical 17 - 18" chair seat height, you have 6 - 8" clearance.  

John

[atgcpaul]

I like the idea of modifying that bench into a stool. Years ago I did a SketchUp model of that bench. Haven't thought about it for a long time, though. I wonder if I still have it.

If you ever mock up the stool, I'd really like to see that.  Not only do I want to shrink the bench down to chair width, but I've been thinking about how to make it disassemble.  As it's designed now, the cord connects the two sides together.  I'm thinking about making the middle section "float" and somehow disconnect from the two sides.

[DaveR1]

I found the SketchUp model. So something like this?

I suppose you could put the end rails that the cord wraps over in between the front and back rails but the front and back rails would still need to go into the legs.

I'd be inclined to lower the arm rests to about 3 inches above the seat on the stool version. I guess they wouldn't be arm rests anymore, though.