It was a long weekend here in the UK which gave me some time to make some final adjustments to a desk I’ve been building and take a photo. And, here it is.
Many years ago I read Douglas Adams’ Last Chance to See (which on a side note was one of my original motivators for wanting to work at WWF). Though I was maybe fifteen when I read this book, one of several notions that stuck with me was:
In the twenty years following, airports have been upping their game when it comes to design. Standing Desks however are severely lacking in the ‘pretty’ department (even if they’re currently trendy). If you haven’t looked into this yourself, try an image search now for ‘Standing Desk’. Even try a Pinterest search where you limit the results to the things that design conscious human beings think are worth looking at, and you’ll see standing desks are struggling.
There are a few exceptions, including the craftsmanship of MoFo’s own Simon Wex. But mostly, standing desks are not very pretty.
But still, I wanted a standing desk, and one that I’d want to look at for the many many of the hours in my life spent working. And I didn’t feel like spending hundreds of pounds buying an ugly office version, so I challenged myself to build something not-ugly. For relatively little money.
To credit my sources, I basically combined the two desks below into the thing I wanted (and added an extra shelf to stash the laptop):
- This lovely desk
- The approximate angles and measurements of this standing desk (in particular the negative slope keyboard stand)
The three horizontal shelves were IKEA shelves left in our house by the previous owners, so I spent about £25 on the remaining timber and carriage bolts to hold the frame together.
I’ve been using it for a few weeks now, and am thoroughly enjoying it.
Also, making things is fun.