DIY Standing Desk Round 2 - Home Edition

I wrote previously about the Standing Desk I use in my cube at work. Recently, I decided that it was working so well for me that I wanted one at home, too. At home, I didn't have a cubical I had to work with, so I went for a different design.

I wanted something adjustable so I could get the height exactly right, but I didn't care about being able to adjust it on the fly (once I got the right height I knew I wouldn't care about sitting down at it or anything). I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it.

Like last time I went to the Container Store. Not because I like them a lot better than Ikea, but because the closest container store is 5 miles from my house, and the closest Ikea is 25 miles.

What I ended up with was a set of InterMetro shelves that cost me about $180 (for the minimum set). Here's the parts list:

So it's effectively 2 sets of InterMetro shelves sharing a common middle pair of supports with two shelves each.

I put the solid shelf at keyboard height (where my elbow is at a right angle and my forearm is parallel to the floor) on the front set of four posts, and a shelf on the back set of 4 posts at the right height so the middle of my monitor is at eye level.  Then I put one shelf at the bottom of the back set for stability, and a "foot rest" shelf on the front set positioned so that, when I rest one of my feet on it, my thigh is parallel to the floor.  I end up resting one or the other of my feet on it fairly often.  It seems to reduce fatigue to change positions frequently.

I got another of the Gel Mats that I didn't count in my $200 budget, but I recommend anyway.

Standing desk DIY Episode 3: It was too hard AND it was too soft, but now it's just right.

Two more days of Standing Desk, with a level keyboard, and I love it, but I have two problems.

The first is, my feet hurt, especially my heels. The second is that I have a tendency to rest my hands on the keyboard shelf when I not typing, causing it to flex, and I'm afraid I'm going to warp or break it.

So today, I'm fixing both problems.

The first is easy, although not cheap. I went to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a GelPro Basket-weave Mat which, although the single most expensive part of this setup, it totally worth it and has made a big difference in how my feet feel already.

I stood on a couple of cheaper mats at the store, and this one was far and away the most comfortable so, even though it was the most expensive, I got it anyway, and have no regrets so far.

I have one concern, which is that I don't know how durable it is. I still have a chair in my cube for the times when I feel like I need a break from standing and want to sit down (which I'm doing for about an hour a day, mostly right before I go home), and I'm worried about if the chair getting rolled over it will tear it up or not. Time will tell, I guess.

As far as the keyboard shelf goes, I decided to go for overkill. I went back to the building supply store and got two pieces of 6 inch by 18 inch by 1/8th inch welding steel. I took off the top board of the keyboard shelf and put the welding steel pieces in between. Then I put the other sheet back on and secured it all together with the binder clips.

It looks exactly the same as it did, but now it hardly flexes at all.

As you can hopefully tell from this stack of books piled on the edge.

So now I've solved my two biggest issues so far.

And with that, I have no more doubts or concerns. It has been a very positive experiment, and I don't want to go back to siting all day.

I'm sure I'll have more to say about working standing up as we go on, but at the moment, I feel more energized, especially in the afternoons when I used to get sleepy at my desk. I feel far more connected to my colleagues around me and far more plugged in to what my group is doing, and that's a good thing.

I don't know that I'm getting any more done, but I'm not getting any less done, and that was a concern I had going into this, which turns out to have been completely unfounded.

I'm calling this a Huge Success.

Standing Desk DIY Episode 2: Customizing the keyboard stand

I wrote a couple of days ago about my DIY desk. I've been quite happy with it so far, with one exception: The keyboard "drawer". It wasn't quite table enough. It would bounce just a little bit when I typed, which was annoying. Even worse, though, the lap desk I was using wasn't completely flat, and so the keyboard was tilted slightly which made it very difficult to hit the right keys.

 But, I was liking standing up enough that I decided it was time to break my "nothing that can't be repurposed or returned" rule and get a flat sheet to slide into the drawer rails to put the keyboard and magic trackpad on. I measured, and I needed a sheet no wider than 17 inches and no thicker that 5/16ths of an inch.

So I went to the local building supply store and looked through the 24" by 48" sheets of wood and plywood. I picked up several, and I found a 1/4" thick piece of birch seemed to be the most rigid that met my criteria. I had the guys in the store put it on a rip saw and cut two 17" wide boards out of it. I was only planning on using one, but I had them cut two because I thought one might not fit.

I got them home and applied adhesive white shelf paper to make it look better and avoid splinters, then I took it into the office this morning. I found the one that fit best (one was slightly narrower than the other) and lid it into the drawer rail. It was wobblier than I wanted, both because it wasn't perfectly rigid and because it was thinner than the rails. So I was playing with it, and decided to try to double it up. I put the second sheet on top of the first one (sitting on top of the rail, while the first one was sitting in the groove of the rail). Then I used binder clips (because I had them) to stick the two together.

Now the keyboard sits flat, which is much better. So far, so good.

More to come.

Standing Desk DIY: Cubicle Edition

Lately, I've read several articles on standing desks and especially on the health risks of the modern office.

I wanted to try it out, especially since I pulled a muscle in my back a few month ago and, now that I'm all recovered, I don't want it to happen again. The biggest problem with that for me, is that I spend a lot of time programming in a cubicle farm. I hadn't seen a configuration yet that seemed like it would work well with cubes, but I think I finally managed to work one out.

So in order to work for me, in addition to being a functional work station and putting the keyboard and monitors at ergonomically correct heights, a potential standing desk had to meet several additional criteria:

• It couldn't involve modifying the cube itself (the cubicle police would object).


• It had to work with an existing cube.


• It had to leave the cube completely undamaged and unmarred (no scratches, no nailing no clamping).


• It had to be stable (virtually no chance of tipping over)


• It had to be light weight (no chance of overloading the cube's horizontal surface).


• It needed to be relatively portable (i.e. able to be moved if I change cubes)


• It had to be quick to set up (i.e. no lumber working) because I'm busy enough already.


• It had to be inexpensive, because if I don't like it, it will be temporary.


• It would ideally be able to be repurposed, so if it doesn't work out, it's not a complete waste.

I had thought about several different potential configurations in my head, but I couldn't get it to work, and the biggest problem I had was how to get enough space for mousing, and this summer that problem was "magically" fixed.

As a base, I used an elfa medium 4-runner drawer kit with a White Melamine Top.

It ends up being about 20 inches tall (after the no-scratch feet and the top). It's stable, portable and fits on the cube desk well enough, but it was too tall to type (putting the keyboard on top, my elbows were lower than the keyboard). I used it for a few hours with my laptop sitting on top of it, and then I realized that one of the drawer rails was very close to being level with my elbow. So I went back to the Container Store and looked for a shelf to go in that rail. They don't make them, and I couldn't find anything the right size, so I got a drawer to go in the correct rail, and then found a lap desk

whose base fit perfectly into the top of the mesh drawer and rests on the rim.

The iMac goes on the Melamine top, and the keyboard and the magic trackpad go on the lap desk, which sits on the drawer, which is about 40% open. That mostly worked. That lap desk is slightly lower in the middle than on the edges, so I had to use Post-It notes as a shim to make the place where the keyboard and trackpad rest level with the sides. Then I could type just fine. Then I added an xtra-narrow 4-runner kit with top to use as a stand for the (to me) mandatory second monitor (it's very convenient that they are exactly the same height).

So I ended up spending (roughly) $65 on the primary shelf, $55 on the secondary monitor stand, and an extra $45 on the keyboard drawer setup. I thought about saving $30 or so by having a 17"x24" sheet of 1/4" thick MDF or plexiglass cut to slide into the rails instead of using the drawer/lapdesk combo, and I still might, but I decided I preferred this setup because every single piece can be repurposed if I decide the experiment is a failure.

So far, so good. I'm quite happy with this setup. We'll see how I feel after a full week or month.

Update: I made modifications noted here and here, and the desk I use at home I documented here.