I really enjoy fast and simple projects, because you can so quickly get the satisfaction of producing a finished project.

This project is a stand for your monitor; it gives the monitor a boost in height. It serves a very important purpose, since office ergonomics play a huge part in our physical health and comfort. People often make do with just a few books piled up, or maybe an empty box. As a woodworker, we have no need to put up with such things when a simple stand can be crafted with a just few hours work. At it's core all this is, is a board that is the right width and the right depth, along with two legs that make it the right height. But why stop there?

I picked a piece of surplus soft+wormy maple for this project. The legs are two 3" pieces cut from the ends of the same board. I could have just nailed them into place and called it done. But I'm not just a woodworker, I'm also a designer, and I like to see what else I can do to make a project just a bit more than ordinary. And so I looked through my box of leftovers to see what I could do to spice this up. What I found was a skinny piece of redheart hiding in the corner; a leftover from some previous project. I was somewhat surprised that I had kept it, it was only 1/4"x3/8" in cross section, and about 20" long. But I do love red, and exotics, and so I kept every scrap of this.

I took the maple board, turned it on edge, and ripped a dado along the front edge, and then glued in that strip of redheart, to add a nice touch of colour along the front.

Next, instead of just nailing this together, I spruced it up by first drilled a series of shallow 1/4" diameter holes along the edge. Then I did nail this piece together, however I positioned my nail gun such that all the brads were inside those holes. I could then cut short pieces of 1/4" dowel and use those to plug the holes. This gives the look of a glued + doweled project, but with the quick simplicity of using a nail gun. (The close-up photo shows two of these dowels that mask the nail holes.)

Cheating? Well, yes a bit.

That is really about all there is to say. A notch was cut in the bottom of each leg prior to assembly, so that the stand has four legs. The project was sanded with a Random Orbit Sander to 150 grit, and then finished with a coat of Tried + True Original Wood finish (Which is a mix of Beeswax and Boiled Linseed Oil.)