I am definitely leaning towards a standing desk. I only worry that I might stand for a while and then go back to always sitting. Those of you with standing desks do you stand in the long haul? Are the anti-fatigue mats a necessity?
If you go to Ikea, you can pick out the stuff you want and build what suits you.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/planner/byod-planner/
The planner should help. My son did this for his and he’s been really happy with it. It’s minimalistic. Just the drawers on the left and two posts on the right.
I have an ancient Sauder desk that has an extra deep top in the living room for the family PC. I absolutely love it because it’s deep enough for the tower and has plenty of width for monitor and printer.
I have a hand cranked adjustable at home which I never raise. Not sure my cabling has that much slack now I come to think of it :) Both the easy counterweighted and electric options we have at work I raise and lower all the time. Someone else handled that cabling… I haven’t noticed a mat being necessary but I’m always switching back and forth.
At first, you’ll have to take some time to adjust. Don’t try to start out standing 8 hours at a time. I rarely ever sit down now, but it took some months to adjust. If you don’t have the ergonomics right, you’ll have some back pain. It’s important to take the time to try different height settings and to read about proper ergonomics.
Yes, and I really recommend looking at the ones that have the bumps on them, like the Topo mat. It helps a lot, when standing, to be able to move your feet around on padding, have little bumps to stand on, etc. After a while, it becomes a background distraction for your feet. I find myself shifting around all the time.
I have a motorized standing desk but never use it in standing mode anymore as it’s too unreliable. Maybe because it only has one motor and is too weak to lift all the equipment on my desk. So lesson learned: pay extra for dual motors next time. Now I use an Apple Watch to remind me to stand up and walk around every hour.
This is an interesting tip I hadn’t ever considered, I’d never even heard the phrase “anti-fatigue mats” until about 12 minutes ago, and I stand at my desk at the office probably 75% of my day. I see they are $69 on Amazon, those Topo mats, so I’ll order one and give it a try. Thanks!
I hate just standing around, I can’t do it for very long. So I bought a lifespan treadmill desk and it’s been working for years now. I like to walk for ~3 hours a day at a pretty fast past and sit the rest at another desk, which is a cheap ikea corner desk. Which is designed well and is exactly what i want, but the build quality is terrible. The top has worn away in any spot I touch frequently to reveal super ugly particleboard.
I switch back and forth between desks by having separate keyboards and mice/trackballs and using a TV on the treadmill desk and floating monitors on the sit down portion. Macros switch monitor outputs on the PC so it’s seamless.
So I am thinking a custom order with a nice real wood hard top that is the same shape as the limmon corner ikea is what I should do next. Something like what @tman posted above is beautiful, but it wouldn’t match my office. It’s white and tan, predominately but I hate the idea of a white desk - it’s currently black. Which I don’t like either. But I don’t think straight up wood would match very well, despite how much I like it.
I really like to take my shoes off and use it b/c it sort of massages the bottom of your foot. My wife has the larger Topo mat and I have the Mini, which I prefer because it has a more pronounced bump at the back. It’s great without taking shoes off, too, but then no free foot massage.
That sounds awesome.
I am getting ready to buy one of these:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/linnmon-tabletop-geometric-black-blue-blue-20353755/
Then I will pick out the legs I want:
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/cat/legs-trestles-11845/
I’m planning on a file cabinent and two of these:
I’ve got one of these motorized, height adjustable, command center shaped desks, but in a darker color:
It’s great. An Allsteel Altitude. I more or less got it free from work. Handling IT for office design and dealerships has a few perks.
I’d look at maple if you want white and tan. Western maple has quite a variation between those two colors with streaks of both colors depending upon the board.
But really to stay more white (because most finishes are going to impart a darker hue) you really need to stay with water based finishes because they retain the original color better than any other finish.
I had a standing set-up for about 6 months, and I went back to sitting because I started reading data that I was just shifting one set of problems for another. That data behind the sitting fad is not… well it’s barely there.
I’ve got a setup similar to this except I’ve got two monitors so I put the case in the corner behind the monitors:
That’s the link I posted above. You can build a virtual one to see what it looks like.
If I stand 50% of the time then I would find it worth while. The desk lowers to a sitting type desk too so I can have the issues with sitting and standing too long :)
My set-up had hydraulics, so it was super simple to raise and lower. I’d definitely recommend something really easy to make the shift if you are planning on a 50/50 set-up. I have local former co-workers that went full-time standing at work. They picked up some… bar-stool like chairs since the office set-up was a one and done thing. Some people really do love that option.
How easy or difficult is it to type while walking? And I mean typing quite a bit, not just a short sentence or two. I’m just curious.
My guess is it gets easier with practice.