opinions and help on my desk / storage plans please

[furythings]

hi everyone, I'm making a new desk/storage area for my room and want your opinions, suggestions, hints, tips, what ever you've got.

only bit of the design I'm definitely not sure on is the bit on the left where the 3 back shelf's join up to the side ones and the main desk sits but I'm quite open to completely changing everything if it can be done better

the colour scheme by the way is just so I can identify bits thickness (green is 18mm / cyan 12mm / gold 6mm )

also have a few other questions

the desktop and the 2 floor units will be mdf and probably painted black but what do you reckon to making the upper shelves (though not the vertical bits) out of thin whitewood strips biscuited together? as I quite like the idea of stained wood contrasting against the black desk and staining mdf aint gonna happen

and lastly I was planning on joining most of it together with biscuits, see any issues with that?

and here are the plans so far

the brown thing is an existing desk that will support the new desktop top on that side

lower left side unit

right side unit

This is the bit I'm not sure on and have probably gone about all wrong, suggestions?

with some measurements

and to give you an idea how it will be used

 

[DAZB]

Looks good to me and regarding using biscuits you may have to consider the weight imposed on the shelving as they will not be as strong as mechanical fixings. Impressive drawings too, what have you used to do them ?

 

[furythings]

Looks good to me and regarding using biscuits you may have to consider the weight imposed on the shelving as they will not be as strong as mechanical fixings. Impressive drawings too, what have you used to do them ?

I used google sketchup to draw it all, pretty easy to learn especially if you use the help files/videos/tutorials available

as for the shelves they will probably weigh more themselves than what I stick on them apart from the dvd storage one which will be reinforced

 

[big-all]

at minimum you need to thicken up the front edge and have one support across the large span

you could look at scaffold board or worktop for the top then what you put on top wont cause problems
i would build the top in 3 pieces
the drawers underneath should point forward for at least half the unit
if you have a drawer unit centrally at the front it will support the front edge

 

[furythings]

so I've changed things round a bit, I've split the main desktop top so the right side part is now basically just a new top for the old desk and I've added a 44*44 strip to edge the main desktop
I've also reworked the upper left bit where the shelves meet to be simpler and stronger

And I'm going to alter an old chest of drawers to support the main desk under the right side

I also think I'm going to make the upper shelves and supports (blue bits) by joining pine strips together as that reduces the number of big mdf sheets I need which is good as I don't really have much space for those and also means less mdf to mess about priming and painting.