The time of the executive desk has passed, and it's time to move on to a stand-up desk. We had these when I worked at CME (although those were electric), and I really liked it. Initially, I looked for adjustable desks, and regardless of whether they were powered or manual, they were very expensive. So, I ordered some table legs online, and started digging around for the wood. Here's the result.
The first step was to get the legs attached to the table surface. The holes in each leg for the screws are just slightly different on each leg, so I put marks on each leg, and under the surface to ensure I always get them in the right place, once holes are drilled.
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| Getting the legs affixed to the surface. |
So, after some digging, I found most of the wood I'll need. The surface came from a cabinet we picked up from Habitat for Humanity (the cabinet is now an island in the kitchen). It had some damage in one corner, but a new veneer will fix that. I just happened to have almost a full sheet in the garage.
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| Finished the drawer, and main assembly of the surface and shelving. |
The stained piece will end up being a drawer for storing supplies. It will slide into the two 2x10s that I mounted to the surface. The trim on the drawer came from a stack of old trim we had that we pulled out from the house. The plywood was in the scrap bin, and the wood on the back came from a stack of wood that we pulled out of the deck a few years ago. The shelves came from the same stack of old deck wood.
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| Stained the desk and cut pieces for monitor stands. |
The staining is finished for the main part of the desk. I've also cut pieces to support two monitors that will sit on each side of the desk. the wood (with the exception of the small square pieces) came from the same pile of old deck wood. I ended up buying a short piece of scrap for the squares. The black ones will be where the monitor mounts to the pole, and the unstained pieces will be the bases.
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| It's a stand-up desk! |
We see the monitor stands are now assembled. I also added trim around the surface. It was also scrap from the house. A little more stain, lots of varnish, and it's ready to go. I designed the section underneath the surface to be the same width as a standard computer rack so I could mount my old virtual machine server which is being repurposed as a desktop. Unfortunately, my dual monitor card doesn't fit in the case, so I'll need to pick up a low-profile dual monitor video card for this one.
Post Set-up
I realized quickly that the amount of surface will isn't quite as much as I need (I felt like this was the case as I was building it, but until it's in place, it's hard to be sure). So, I moved an older temp stand-up desk next to it, which does much better. I noticed it's a little warm under the desk, so when I ordered the dual monitor card, I also picked up an extra case fan to move a little more air. I found that the cables are being pushed around in back by the rear wall on the drawer. I'll need to make a small bracket, and hang the cables from the bottom of the surface so they are out of the way.
