"TOP
Treat the top as a separate piece to be placed on top of a stable frame, just the way a table is made. It can be one thickness of MDF or two. The principal board (the one that shows and is the work surface) should have one side laminated with melamine (It comes that way). If you decide on 2 thicknesses, I have a piece suitable for gluing to the underside of the top. It will be smaller than the top so it will fit inside the frame we are going to build. That means, the INSIDE dimension of the frame should be no longer than 32”. It presently is 34”. The edges of the top piece will be raw, so we will put a strip of walnut around all 4 edges. The edge towards the user will be flush with the work surface and the other 3 sides will extend upwards about ¼” so things won’t slide off. The walnut will look good with the white melamine. The outer dimensions of the top can be determined later or you can design the frame pieces, figure out the final outer dimensions of the frame, and then design the top with about a one inch to two inch overhang all around. The walnut strips will add about ¼” to each dimension.
FRAME
The frame is pretty much as you designed it except it will have a full set of stringers (the long skinny boards) all around the top to stabilize it. I like your use of through-tenons very much, so the longer pieces will pierce the top end of the legs as through-tenons. The left-hand short piece will have to have short tenons because the piece will be on the same level as the through tenons, which will have priority for occupying the legs. The right–hand stringer will be the side of the drawer box. We will attach that in place using biscuits. (I have biscuits and a biscuit joiner.) If you will make your through-tenons a little longer, maybe 3 ½”, there will be room to cut mortises into the portion of the tenon that sticks out, and we can put a wedge through each tenon to secure it in place. That way, you can remove the wedges to disassemble the desk. The top will be attached to the frame with 4 clips and 4 screws, so the top can also be removed when disassembling the desk. Incidentally, don’t build the top until the frame is complete. Then we cut the top to fit the frame. The horizontal stringers on top should be widened to 2 ½” or 3” for increased stability. In fact, all stringers can be widened to the same width.
LEGS
Did anyone ever tell you your legs were a little skinny? A I” square leg is pretty bendy. I would go with 1 5/8” legs. That’s the size of a so-called 2x2. I can show you examples here at the house of various sized legs and you can make a choice. If the thicker legs look too blocky, I would recommend tapering them starting just below the lowest stringer. The taper is on the inside of each leg, not on the outside, so only 2 sides will be tapered."
We're planning to meet over break at some point to discuss the project further. Since I'm quite busy this coming week I'll be unable to do as I hoped, like visiting hardware stores and meeting with Matt Cooper.
From my grandfathers comments, I'm working again on my "Improved Design" to change the attachment of the tabletop and the width of the legs. The problem with changing the width of the legs in CAD is they determine sizes of most of the other lengths of the desk so almost everything will change minorly.
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