A Better Standing Desk
This is the story about finding my standing desk Shangri-La.
First, a bit of backstory. I started using standing desks around 2013 mostly for health reasons. It was “on trend” with a number of studies that showed sitting at a desk for long hours would adversely affect your health in ways that exercise couldn’t easily undo. Since then there’s been much debate about the actual benefits, but if you’ve made the switch at any point, you know its hard to go back to sitting full time.
There are a number of types of standing desks so I’ll provide a brief overview of the things I’ve personally tried.
- There are traditional standing desks that are set at a fixed height, you set it at the height that's right for you, and you stand at it, all day. These are the cheapest option, and you can convert an existing desk, to a standing desk with some ingenuity.
- You can mount shelves to the walls and put your equipment on them, again, at a fixed height.
- There are sitting/standing desks accessories, like Versadesk, which you place on a traditional desk, and it lifts up your keyboard and monitor.
- There are adjustable standing desks, these come in a both motorized and manual fashion. There’s a really wide gamut based on surface size, number of motors, weight support, etc.
- There are homemade standing desks, that just get your keyboard and your monitor up in the air. Here’s mine, made of paper, below:
I’ve tried each of the options mentioned above with mixed results. I started with wall mount shelving I placed monitors on and moved on to a traditional desk, raised up about 1.5' using cement blocks. The wall mount option still required a traditional desk, and the elevated desk worked pretty well, except after a few hours, you really wanted to sit down.
This led me to the paper standing desk (pictured below), which was easy to adjust (just move the paper), and you can sit down for a bit if you need to. It's not practical, but it was fun. I finally moved to a motorized standing desk from Uplift. It actually works really well, but the table tops are kind of small, and if you're like me, you have a lot of crap on your desk. It's not much room.
Going Custom
I needed a bigger table top, I wanted a large surface area, but standing desks only come in relatively small sizes. There is a solution though, you can buy the motorized legs separate from the frame and the tops. Usually, the legs with frames come with two motors, but I wanted a big service that could move a large desk, so I purchased 4 legs linked together through two control boxes. This is a configuration you can purchase, no hacking required.
Next, I needed a new frame and tabletop. Originally, I tried a 6'x3' conference table, and it worked well for a while. Here it is with 6 monitors.
As you can see, it's a bit cramped, the floor is covered with stuff, the tabletop has limited space, and there’s just generally not enough room.
I needed something bigger so I decided to build a new frame, a 4'x8' frame, that also tucked all the components under the desk, so when you went up or down, the components went with you. Things like storing your printer, in my case, a Mac Pro, power cords, AC/DC transformers, etc.
The Build
The build was pretty smooth, I started with 4'x8' sheet of 3/4" plywood. To that, I build a figure-8 frame made out of 2"x6" pine. This gave the plywood rigidity. The frame was screwed to the 3/4" plywood using 1 1/2" construction screws. To ensure the frame was well joined to itself, I used 6" steel L brackets in all the corners. Additionally, I added 6"x6" “pads” in each of the four corners, similarly secured for the actually legs to attach.
Now that I had a rigid frame, I needed to put the table top on. For that, I applied a 4'x8' sheet of 1/2" thick red oak sheet. Since I wanted the tabletop to be smooth, I used wood glue to glue it onto to the 3/4" plywood and held it in place with clamps until it dried.
To finish the sides, I added a 3"x1/2" red oak curtain which covers the 2"x6" frame, the 3/4" plywood, and the 1/2" red oak top nicely.
To provide a smooth corner, I routed the edges of the curtain so it feels nice against your wrists. For the top, I puttied the gaps, sanded it smooth, and then stained & sealed it. Makes sure you seal it with at least 3 coats with sanding in-between.
Next, I added an undercarriage to hold my power cords, Mac Pro, and whatever else I wanted to keep off my desk. It's pretty straight forward, I build it according to my hardware and hung it from the undercarriage.
Finally, I wanted the underside to look nice, and not just be unfinished wood. To give it a nice look and feel, I “flecked” the entire underside, and then painted the flecked black.
The final step was to attach the legs, which I installed with construction screws through the plates I built when assembling the frame and wire up the standing control boxes.
Final Product
This desk is a beast, the frame itself is pretty heavy, maybe 150–200lbs. The legs should be able to move 700lbs though safely. I can sit on the desk and ride it up and down without issue.
Parts
Upwork sells the leg’s here for about $180 each: https://www.upliftdesk.com/replacement-leg-by-uplift-desk/. All the other parts you can purchase at your local home improvement store. Below are some pictures of the underside.
I’ve been using this desk for about 2 years now, and it’s been wonderful. If your not terribly handy, buying the legs and mounting them to a tabletop you like works well, it may not be as sturdy and may cost a bit more though, YMMV.
If you have any questions, email me!
Update: Uplift now sells a 4-leg adjustable frame desk, so you can skip the frame, and put whatever tabletop you want on it.
https://www.upliftdesk.com/uplift-900-four-leg-adjustable-height-standing-desk-frame/
