Where do you find woodworking plans?

[Hardwood]

I'm looking to build myself a new desk. I'm thinking about an "L" shaped desk to take advantage of the windows in my office. 

Actually, a table(s) with some drawers may better meet my needs, and get me an "L" shape. I don't need hanging file drawers, for me those are obsolete, my former paper files are now digital. Yet most every desk plan I see, features hanging file folders.  

I've looked at plans available on the websites of many major magazines, and looked through years of back issues from Fine Woodworking, Woodsmith, Wood, Woodworkers Journal, Popular Woodworking, etc. I've also spent time on Pinterest and doing random google searches. 

I've found some cool pictures of things others have built, but with no step by step plans, or even a cut list. 

I thought about designing something myself with the free version of SketchUp, but frankly I suck at that. 

Where do you guys find plans? I'm willing to pay for plans, but I just don't know where to look. Any ideas?

Or do I just need to just suck it up, and figure out how to get better at SketchUp, or some other software?

[Tapper]

If you find a picture of a desk you like but with no step-by-step plans, you can probably find someone who can draw it up in Sketchup on these pages for a nominal fee. Just ask them to drop you a PM.

All of the magazines you mentioned are certainly good candidates. First place I would've looked would be in the library of FWW issues; having done that I really can't think of any other option other than having someone draw it up for you.

Doug

[fredhargis]

When it comes to designing things, or just being creative, I was skipped over when they handed out those genes. So I'm always looking for some guidance when i build something. That can be a picture that I'll scale to size and get dimensions, or a set of plans, or just seeing something in a store. I'll offer this: search for "L shaped desk plans" and see if something shows up that will help. I've been a long time fan of magazine plans, as well as a long time subscriber to several of the magazines you listed....but I don't recall ever seeing an L shaped desk being published. Still, you can do an article search at their websites to see if the published any. But any of this is going to take some legwork on your part, something folks like me (and maybe you) just have to do I'm afraid.

[FS7]

I'm the opposite of Fred in that I almost never use plans. The last (only?) time I would have would have been for Adirondack chairs, and I haven't made any in years. On the rare occasion people do me the honor of asking for plans, though, I don't have them.

I built one last year for my wife to replace a large old hutch-style deck precisely because she wanted to enjoy the windows in her office.

https://i.ibb.co/h7J7ZJP/20210215-184147.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/8DRt8KQ/20210215-184216.jpg
https://i.ibb.co/SdmfZdZ/20210306-134836.jpg

Not the most "showcase" pictures but I can provide some level of description on what I did.

[R Clark]

I have three upper cabinets full of old WWing mags. If they can't meet my need, then I get close and wing it from there.

I'm terrible at drawing good plans, so if I can get started with one plan, or even a couple plans jammed together, I can usually make it work.

I think it would be hard to find a plan like you want. If it was me, I'd find a decent stand alone desk, use that for one side, make a match for the other side of the L shape, and then find a way to join them at the corner. That could be as simple as a single board to cover the open corner, or even a corner cabinet. Badda Bing, badda boom, a custom solution.

[jteneyck]

You don't need to use a computer to design something.  Pencil and paper worked fine for a long, long time.  The real issue is knowing what you want.  Once you know what that is you can adapt proportions and details from photos of other pieces.  You also need to know how to put something together, joinery, etc.  There are several cabinet and furniture books to help with that.  Similar projects in FWW, WoodSmith, etc. are good sources for construction details, too.  Frame and panel is the same in a desk as it is in a dresser, the same for drawers and drawer guides and dust frames.  It's all the same basic approach, recycled and adapted to the project at hand.  You probably already know everything needed to build this.  

If you have never designed a piece of furniture yourself, there's no better opportunity than for a project like this one.  

John

[Hank Knight]

I've only built one piece from someone else's plans. It had dimension errors and I had to rework some parts. Except for that piece, I have always drawn my own plans. On simple pieces, just a sketch or two with basic dimensions suffice. For more complicared pieces I often start with sketches and end up drawing full scale plans. Preparation of the full scale drawings serves as a mock-up for me. I can spot probelm areas and work them out on paper before I start cutting wood. By the time I start cutting, I'm pretty confident I've got the plan and the drawings nailed, so I can proceed without having to second guess myself at every turn. It takes a little time on the front end, but I think it saves me a lot of time and rework in the long run.

[Hardwood]

Thanks everyone, it seems like I've looked in all of the usual places. 

Someone pointed out that I should just use pencil and paper and actually I'm pretty good with that approach. I might be guilty of overthinking and making things more complicated than necessary. I did design a desk/table for my daughter last winter. That was tricky because I wanted to make it "knock down" so that she could fit in her car and drive it 800 miles to Atlanta and then reassemble it by herself. I also didn't want to have any hardware easily visible. That worked out ok with some hardware from Lee Valley. 

I'm going to get a legal pad and my pencils out tomorrow and see what I come upon with.

[Willyou]

I am surprised that you say you can't find plans among the various magazines. I have subscribed to two magazines for years and almost every issue they have measured plans for something. For example, if you go to:

https://www.finewoodworking.com/projects-and-plans

you will find lots of plans, but you must be an on-line subscriber. I think most all of the woodworking magazines do this.

https://www.woodmagazine.com/search?q=desk has a number of free desk plans.

As others have suggested, if you don't find exactly what you want, it is pretty easy to take the plans for something in the style you like and modify it to fit your need/wants. If you find a straight desk you like, just put a bend it it to make a corner desk out of it. Otherwise, the construction is the same.

[Hardwood]

I am surprised that you say you can't find plans among the various magazines. I have subscribed to two magazines for years and almost every issue they have measured plans for something. For example, if you go to:

https://www.finewoodworking.com/projects-and-plans

you will find lots of plans, but you must be an on-line subscriber. I think most all of the woodworking magazines do this.

https://www.woodmagazine.com/search?q=desk  has a number of free desk plans.

As others have suggested, if you don't find exactly what you want, it is pretty easy to take the plans for something in the style you like and modify it to fit your need/wants. If you find a straight desk you like, just put a bend it it to make a corner desk out of it. Otherwise, the construction is the same.

I didn't say that I couldn't find plans. I can find plenty of plans that I don't care for. Most desk plans feature drawers for hanging file folders, which in my opinion, is an obsolete concept when virtually all of my file storage is digital. 

Thanks for the links, but I'm already an online subscriber to both of the links you posted in addition to a couple of others (Woodsmith, Woodworkers Journal etc.). I've looked through many years of back issues for all of them, and after awhile many of the plans kind of look generic between websites. (For example, you can find a ton of plans for Adirondack Chairs, but they all kinda look the same). 

Currently, I'm just planning to make my own design, based on something I like the looks of. 

I guess I was looking for an easy way out, wondering if there was a website that I didn't know about. Apparently not.