How To: My Perfect Home “Office”
The pandemic of 2019–2020 has me spending way more time at home. In the beginning I worked in the garage. I sat at my workbench. I sat on a bar stool. No keyboard, no mouse, no monitor. Just me and a laptop. When it became clear that this situation was not going back to normal, I started putting together my perfect home office.
I started quite boorishly. I took over the desk we had used as a diaper changing station. A small IKEA desk. My wife was still between jobs, so I took the liberty of using the one external monitor we had sitting around. It is an old Apple Thunderbolt Display I bought new back in 2009. It cost me $999 back then.
Chair
Next I found a chair. I liked searching around on facebook Marketplace. The selection was nice. The integrated chat experience makes communication a breeze. In a short time I found a chair brand and model that I knew was amazing. It was also widely available and inexpensive. The Steelcase Leap is a really great chair. Highly adjustable, high quality, good looking. I found one in leather, in almost new condition. It was listed for $350. When I arrived at the furniture store, the store owner told me she was sorry. She discovered that the chair had an issue. The seat back was separated from chair back, but it would not affect functionality. I took a quick look and I was able to fix it. Pleased, she offered me a discount and sold me the chair for $315. Here is the setup at that point.
I was pretty happy at this point. That happiness grew and grew into a small obsession…as these things often do.
Monitors
The next component was another monitor. By this time my wife had gone back to work in a new role. She needed a monitor too. I started searching for a nice monitor. I’ve been really happy with my Thunderbolt Display. Once again I went to the FB. I found many of them for under $300. I bought two of them. One more for me and one for my wife. Here is the result of that:
Electronic Standing Desk
The next step was to find a better desk. Remote work was a lot of video conferencing at first. I was sitting down, a lot. I wanted a standing desk, but by this time I was starting to gain the attention of my household budgeting board. Now I needed board approval. I checked and the board was willing to approve no more than $400. At first I thought that was impossible. I gave up for a few days. Facebook once again. Popping up in my feed, Autonymous Standing Desks. Apparently they make a DIY kit, for $319. It has some really great ratings. It fit the guidance of my budgeting board perfectly. I ordered it.
I simply attached the top from my IKEA desk to the actuating motorized legs, and within an hour I had this.
Keyboard….s
When the office was open I had a very nice WASD keyboard. Since the office has been locked down, I haven’t been able to get it. Opportunity accepted. You don’t have to tell me twice I need do buy a new keyboard! I started researching. I have very broad shoulders. Normal keyboards become uncomfortable after a short while. One of my colleagues uses a split keyboard. It’s called the Ergodox EZ. I immediately realized this is my time to shine…not just figuratively. But there was a problem.
The household budgeting board would not be amenable to a $350 keyboard. I had to basically order it and ask for forgiveness.
The EZ can be ordered with LED under-side lighting. That model is called the Ergodox EZ Shine.
The Ergodox EZ is a productionized version of an open source keyboard design. It’s design is ergonomic. It’s ergonomic both physically and psychologically. The split design allows the hands to align with the shoulders. no matter how wide the shoulders, this design fits.
Thirty two layers of fully programmable keys. They challenge the keyboardist to adapt the key function and position to suit his needs. I’ve since made 58 iterations on my layout. ZSA, the company that makes the EZ, also provides a tool, called Oryx, the Ergodox EZ configurator. It is a quite impressive. The UI is simple and intuitive. Check out my layout below.
I continue to tweak my layout, every day. I add small tweaks, making my workflow better every day.
Another Keyboard
I liked this keyboard so much, I bought another one. I decided that if I was going to be in trouble with the budgeting board, I might as well go the extra mile while I can. This is what happens when the rules are inflexible.
ZSA, the same company that makes the Ergodox Ez, makes a Planck keyboard that runs on the same software. The planck is a 40% keyboard. It only has enough keys for the letters and a U shaped rim around the left, right, and bottom. It does not have a split layout. It provides ergonomony by limiting how far your fingers need to travel. It’s also great for travel. It’s tiny.
The Planck has access to 32 layers as well. This makes it possible to have access to more than enough keys to accomplish anything that can be done with a full size board.
Here is my layout for the Planck:
These keyboards are not cheap. For someone like me it’s worth it. I spend 40 hours or more a week on my keyboard. When they arrived, I confessed to my wife, err the budgeting council. I eluded to the rigors of my job. These keyboards are my instrument. I do all my work through them. She actually agreed!
Microphone
A year ago I bought myself a microphone for recording music. The microphone I use is an Apogee Mic Plus. It is a directional microphone. The sound quality is Ah-mazing. I can easily use it without headphones on, because it only picks up my voice, thanks to the fantastic directionality.
Monitor Stands
Monitor stands are essential for aligning the top of the monitors with my eyes. I found a set on Amazon for $33.
They are very stable, and provide me with secure way to raise my monitors at a low price.
LED Lighting
My keyboards have some really awesome LED lighting effects. I wanted to have more LED in my life. I found these LiFX lighting kits.
Here’s how that ended up.
