Hello, I have been following this thread and was going to comment but it is easier and I hope clearer to make a video for you. There are of course many ways to accomplish the same task in Maya and you have already received some great advice from the regular SM crew.

But since you are new to Maya I thought making this video of one way to model that desk might help you by showing a typical workflow, some of the key concepts like control edges, how to use some of the marking menus and selection shortcuts and such.

They always seem to come out longer then I plan, I pontificate I guess. I hope you find it helpful though and welcome to Maya modeling.

I would strongly recommend you consider watching some tutorials. Learning proper work flows is really the key to getting the most out of Maya and it's very easy to develop bad habits that are harder to unlearn.

Welcome and good luck,
Rick

https://youtu.be/dxsl8WbRpDM