A standing desk for $22
I’ve been interested in standing desks for a while. I keep reading things like: he who sits the most dies the soonest. All the options online are expensive. Until now. Ryan of Opani, our deskmate who does amazing big data analytics and I combined our brains to see if we could come up with a better solution:
Introducing The Standesk 2200
It’s a cheap solution made from Ikea parts for as low as $22. And you just put it on top of your existing desk.
What do you want from a standing desk?
Ergonomics are pretty simple. You want your set up to look like this:
Go check out the full article on tinkering monkey. They even make standing desks.
There are really 2 parts of this: monitor height and keyboard height. The key thing is: you don’t want your monitor and keyboard to be on the same surface. You’ll get neck cramps, or cut off blood circulation to your fingers.
Building a standing desk on a regular desk
When you’re working in a coworking space (we’re in General Assembly in New York) or in a regular office, the friction to go from sitting to standing is usually high:
- The cheapest adjustable standing desks are around $800 (geekdesk)
- You already have an existing desk in your workspace
- Your boss would rather you die in your chair than live on your feet
Marco Arment while working at Tumblr built his standing desk from stacking cans of soda stacking cans. Ryan and I did it with parts from Ikea for $22 (+ tax)
So, what’s the recipe?
- Lack side table - $7.99
- Viktor Shelf - $5.99
- Ekby Valter bracket $4.00 x 2
- Screws from home: free.
- Total cost: $21.98
Note: Make sure you get an 11 inch shelf + 11 inch brackets. This means you don’t need to screw in the shelf to the bracket (unless you want to).
^ The desks in action.
Assembly Instructions
As requested by Jonathan Wegener.
Who’s using this design?
A few people so far:
- Colin & John from Customer.io
- Ryan from Opani
- Joel & Matt from Acquaintable
- Saikat from Stripe
If you end up building it, let me know in the comments.
The deluxe
Consider getting yourself another Lack Side Table ($7.99) to double the surface area for your monitor. This option gives you space for a laptop stand.
Also consider the Dioder LED set ($39.99) to add some color to your desk. It gives it that lowrider feel. Though be wary, that the LED lights are more expensive than the entire standing desk.
In summary
This is a phenomenal desk setup. After Ryan and I figured this out, there are 4 other people who have bought the parts to make their own desks.
Have you built an amazing standing desk? Email me colin at customer dot io, or add it in the comments here. I want to see it. Have you made improvements on this design? Let me know too.
