Use plywood with a hard maple face. Easy to find at any decent wood
supply. Rip it to the desired width. Several ways to handle the
L-shape.

1. Miter. The hardest to do but cleanest looking.

2. Butt joint one side into the other. See the banding idea for more
info.

If you do a miter you need to be careful it fits into the corner. Walls
are never square.

I prefer the butt joint.

My suggestion is take the two rectangles of ply and use 3/4" solid
maple or other accent color wood and run a 1 1/4" deep band around all
sides of both. Mitered or butted at the corners. Actually run the
banding deeper by a few inches across the back where it hits the wall.
Run it about an extra inch deep where the two pieces meet, except for
the front few inches.

Put screws through the banding to the wall at the studs. Put bolts
through where the pieces join. Now all you need is legs at the outer
corners or build cabinets to fit underneath.

Hear is a trick for easy hard woood banding on ply.

Use biscuits. Cut the biscuit slots (using a biscuit slot cutter) in
the hardwood band first. Then add a 2 layers of masking tape top the
top of the ply. Now cut the ply slots. Now the hard wood will sit just
barely above the ply when you glue it up. Use a scraper to pull down
the hardwood until you get to the face of the ply, then some light hand
sanding to finish the job.

Finally hit the whole thing with some poly and you done.



rolsonDesign wrote:
I'm building a built-in office unit which is L shape. The computer
workstation will be in the corner (I'll have to build a corner piece).

I would like to know first what kinds of materials make good
computer/office desktops/kid homework surfaces?

Any suggestions out there are most welcome.

Also...How would a professional attach a desktop to the wall and
cabinets below to really make it look nice?