The Clesks at Krisel's Glass Cabin

Let’s take a moment to express our love for adjustable shelves—an invention perfectly adapted to the real-life problem of putting stuff away. Then there are the clesks of Krisel Glass Cabin in Palm Springs, which are the ingenious confection of owner Jared Eberhardt. Clesks are closet-desks, in essence cheerfully adjustable shelves that offer a place to hang whatever needs hanging—plus a desk.

The idea behind this creation would make William Krisel, the original architect of the glass cabin, rather proud. As Krisel Glass Cabin was designed as a weekend retreat, the closets were just going to sit empty most of the time. Jared felt that clesks would be a better use of the space.

In terms of inspiration for design and materials, he shares, “This house was designed as a modest winter cabin. Krisel used inexpensive materials like plywood and peg board, in new and innovative ways to get the modernist look on a budget. For example, the bathrooms and kitchens had plywood cabinets with sliding pegboard doors, very few of which made it through the decades of heavy use (and ill-conceived renovations). It’s very rare to see the originals still in use—they just weren’t very durable. This design was sort of an extra durable replacement and way to pay homage to the home’s past.” For the clesks, Jared used oversized pegboards made out of 1” thick ACX plywood instead of the original 1/4” Masonite.

Jared says it’s one of the easiest shelves he’s made, but we’re pretty sure that speaks mainly in favor of his carpentry skills. The biggest challenge was having to drill perfectly straight holes through the 1” thick plywood. He explains, “Working with soft woods is always a challenge because they splinter, but the look of the grain is so nice, it’s worth the extra effort.”

We love this anecdote that perfectly demonstrates Jared’s commitment to the cause: “People don’t generally use plywood as finished furniture, so the lumber yards aren’t used to having someone dig through an entire stack to find the pieces with the best grain. Each sheet weighs about 75 pounds, and after the forklift guy realized I wanted to see all of them he politely excused himself so I had to go it alone, stacking and unstacking at least 50 sheets to get what I wanted.”