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In Search Of The Perfect Geek Desk? 44

Posted by Cliff from the sitting-in-one-place-for-12-hours-in-style dept.
FooBard asks: "I am looking for a new computer desk, but I just can't find anything that floats my boat. All the desks I seem to find (and I've been looking hard) are made for the average Joe who wants something that looks like a desk and fits his 15" monitor, or for the business manager that needs some place to hold his computer for the one hour a day he uses it. I need something that's ergonomic and power-user-centric, will facilitate a large (21") monitor and allow me the ability to work for several intense programming hours without hurting. Has anyone found a desk that fits this bill? I can't find one that's seems to be made for the programmer, even if I crank my budget up to $1500. " How timely! I'm in the market for something like this myself.
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In Search of The Perfect Geek Desk? More

In Search of The Perfect Geek Desk?

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  • Staple's lousy web site claims "page not found" if you reject their cookies, but the URL ends in "cookieerror.asp".
    --
    This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic

  • I went out and browsed through the local Business Depot (aka Staples) in search of a desk and came away with this one [bushfurniture.com]. Don't bother with the hutch - if you get a really big monitor, you'll never fit it in the gap. Why do I like this desk? First - it's deeper than most, so a big monitor doesn't end up pressed against your forehead while you grope underneath it trying to find the keyboard on the recessed sliding shelf. The entire right-hand side of the desk can be pushed into the desk and disappears from sight - useful if space in your room is a bit limited but you need that flat working area when you are at the desk (and I do!). It's good if you are right handed - the mouse mat sits on the pull-out portion in a close to ideal position next to the pull-out keyboard and you can rest your elbow on the desk at the same time. And you can hide the computer box in the left hand holding bay and free up more desk space. My only complaint with this desk is that the self-assembly could do with some guidance from the Gods at IKEA - there were some 25+ types of screws and bolts to hold this desk together, along with a 60 page manual and 40 pieces of wood. This is not a trivial self-assembly which can be done manual-free (and we know how much coders love reading those manuals ...) :-)

    Of course, this relies on your computer having long enough leads to do the mass of knitting required. This is fast becoming my biggest headache - there are now more leads coming out the back of the machine than I know what to do with - with printer, monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers all requiring connections, along with PNA network card, 56K modem card, Ethernet interface all having multiple leads and the need for 7 power point connections to power this baby, it's a major task to add hardware now because most of the leads only just reach far enough for me to get the computer box out of the desk without pulling the keyboard, mouse and speakers off the back of the desk. Anyone know of a good supplier of extremely long leads, or of a decent wire containment system?

    Cheers,

    Toby Haynes

  • I've got a medium-sized dining room table (about 72"x30")... did not have room for anything larger. It works very well for me, I've got a a Blue & White G3, two 17" monitors, a scanner, printer, and a couple of other externals on it. This works well for me.
  • The ideal desk, as regular Terry Pratchett readers will realise, is a pool table. Plenty of room for whatever you like, plus you can keep pens in the pockets. And play pool around your work when you get bored.

  • I picked up one of these while I was working at Staples a few years back and have loved it ever since. The desk is designed so that it can be used either as a corner desk or a wall desk. It also 'ships flat' (i.e. unassebled), so you can customize the desk as you build it.

    The desk naturally holds one or two CPUs (one on it's side) and one or two monitors (the lower can be up to 19", or 21" if loaded from behind - the moulding gets in the way from the front; the upper always holds up to 21"), but by leaving out a few pieces you can get it to hold 3 CPUs, two monitors, a switch, binder storage, CD storage, speakers and all manner of other handy things.

    Check it out at O'Sullivan's web site [osullivan.com] - the second monitor goes where they have the printer, a second CPU can go under the right half of the desk, and if you leave the top flat, you can leave out the paper holder next to the monitor for a third. (The movable shelf they show the monitor sitting on needs removed for anything larger than 15")

  • ditto (Score:1)

    by Bake ( 2609 )
    I have that desk, easily fits two 19" monitors the way I have it set up, with room to spare. I also have my stereo on the top shelf, kinda nice when playing Quake :)
  • I am a short woman.

    Your mileage may vary. :)

  • If there is an Ikea store near you, visit it! They have a huge selection of desks. I got mine several years ago, and it is built really well. It was a bit pricey at $500, but the thing is mammoth and well well well worth every cent.
  • On both of my computers, I use dining room tables to keep all my crap in place :). They work great, lots of room and if you need more space just pull out a leaf. They're also a lot cheaper than most computer desks (goto a garage sale) and built a lot better than those particle board peices of crap they sell everywhere. Be sure to get an adjustable chair, it helps a lot with the keyboard arrangement. I've also found that the wooden stackable block things (don't know what they're called) can be stacked to the side of, underneath, or on top of the table to organize CDs, floppies, books, or whatever. You can drill a hole in the back of them and put printers and stereos in them too.
    -Antipop
  • The Bush MM80302 [bushfurniture.com] looks good. It has a nice footrest, plus the space for the tower is open, which allows good ventilation. I actually sketched my "perfect desk" a couple months ago, and it was almost identical to this one, which I saw in a Best Buy flyer a week later.
  • I have a big M&M corner workstation that has an adjustable keyboard shelf and an adjustable monitor shelf that easily holds a 21" Trinitron, has lots of room under it for a drawer unit on one side and two CPUs on the other, and has enough surface space (and a rugged enough surface) to build a whole new puter on one side of it. This is the best computer desk I have ever owned.

    Staple s page for it [staples.com].

    - Robin

  • I went on the search for the perfect geek desk and ended up with a Middle Atlantic Edit Center. [middleatlantic.com] It's made for video editing but also works well with the serious geek (especially those of us who have a multitude of equipment and like having a rack handy). It's not the cheapest thing you'll ever see, but it's very well made, attractive and will make you the envy of your geek type friends.

    You can buy them at most any large pro audio-type place. I bought mine from Full Compass [fullcompass.com]


    ----------------------------
  • you can check here [centanet.com], or for a great picture, here [collecterrific.com].
  • I love my current "teacher desk." It's big and is VERY durable and can take tons of punishment. I got it at a school system surplus warehouse. Cost me $50 and was such a great deal. "Teacher Desks" are just great for taking the weight of multiple monitors and taking some punishment from me when I'm working. Easy as heck to clean too, it has some type of composite material on top. I've spilt everything on it and it comes right off.

    In my experience few school systems publicly have "sales" but if you find one and can find the right person and ask. Most have misc desks they can get rid of and are willing to haggle on price (but $50 wasn't a bad initial offer anyway).
  • I have to echo this sentiment -- best $99 I ever spent!

    --jeddz

  • Anthro makes a cool, industrial strength, punk-as-fuck desk. about $1k (okay, not for crusty poor punks). I've had one for about 3 months and dig it much. http://www.anthro.com i think.
  • They have this desk for sale @ Sam's warehouse club for $74.99. Just thought you could look there before you spent $125.00 HVACxpert
  • You may think this is funny . . . but one of my best friends had this through high school. It was surprisingly convenient (with a table next to it, to hold an elevated monitor).
  • The only way I could even come close to having my needs met was to build a desk for my "office". Since I don't have the $$ just now I found that by arranging tables with wood blocks underneath, and creative use of plywood, I could create the workspace I needed. I now also have a better idea of what I want custom built when I have the loot.
  • What I did was buy some bakers racks from the contaniter store. They did not have a keyboard tray for it so I built one, I love haveing a 3' kb tray. you can adjust the selves to different levels where ever you need and they hold 500 lbs per self for the cheap models. Works great for someone like me that has 4 computers and not a lot of space to put them.

  • Build it (Score:3)

    by eyousey ( 98224 ) on Saturday May 13, 2000 @05:18PM (#1074513)
    Just build it.

    I got an apartment at my school this year, and thus no longer had a desk supplied. So I took some old PVC pipe that I had lying around and a piece of plywood and several 2x4's and made a deck.

    I made the top first. This is what the 2x4's and the sheet of plywood are for. Just cut the plywood to the desired deminsions, mine is about 30in. x 80in., but make it whatever size you want. I made mine long for computer and homework space, and it works great. The thicker the plywood the better. Mine is almost to thin at 1/2 in. If I did it again I would use like 3/4 or 1 in. Then you use the 2x4's around the edge on the underside to make it stronger.

    Then you build the PVC pipe legs. Make a PVC frame that fits inside the 2x4s and build your legs down from there. I would suggest that you make sure that you put in bracing, both lateral and diagonal. This helps to prevent rack. If you really want to get technical, you could use pipe of diffenet diameters so that could make it adjustable. When the PVC support frame is built, it should like almost like a table, but without a surface.

    Now put your top on and it all should fit together all nice like.

    Since (most) plywood is not the smoothest surface, unless you got a vinered (sp?) one, but that stuff is pretty expensive. You need to make it smooth. What I used is stuff that is like 50 coats of varnish. I think that it was called Bahr (pronounced "bear") 50. It can be found at a good home supply center like home depot. Put that on in a two coat process and it dries to be about 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick and clear. Besure to follow the directions on the package. If you do it where there are bugs (like I did) then you can use a propane torch and a tooth pick to help to get them out, just need to be delicate.

    Once it dries, you have a desk, and the satisfaction that you made it yourself. If you want to paint it, besure to sand the PVC pipe before you put it together, and the 50 stuff should be paintable too, just sand it too.

    Hope that helps. I'm sure you could get really elaborate if you wanted too, like mutliple levels that are adjustable and such.

    Total cost for me about $100, I think. It was about $50 for the Bahr 50, I think. The plywood and PVC were "borrowed" from mine and my father's unfinished projects. I really have no clue what it all would cost new, maybe like $200, but I'm not sure on that one.
  • I was at home depot today picking up parts to turn our pool into a hot tub, and needed some pvc...

    you can get 10' lengths of 1 1/2" pvc for around 2.50, and the joints are about 50 cents to $1 each. The pvc rig you're talking about shouldn't be more than $20-30

    A good 4'x8' sheet of 1/2" plywood is about $20, and 2x4's are about 2.40 each.

    I always built my desks completely out of 2x4's with screws so you can take it apart easy. Never underestimate the power of 2x4's and a good coat of woodstain to look nice.

    "You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
  • This one [ebay.com] looks pretty neat, and it's fairly cheap to boot. That looks like a 17" monitor he's got in it for show, and there's plenty of room left over.
  • IKEA has a phat desk for ~$300 -- It's called the "Jerker". A friend of mine has it and loves it--I'm getting one next week. Plenty of room, it's expandible, and it comes with swiveling "planks" on the sides to put your printer, phone, etc, out of the way until you need it.
  • Can you imagine spending hours a day with your neck in a nice tilted downward position? ouch!

    I like my display at eye-level, thanks :-)
  • I have this desk. Works REALLY well. Easily fits
    my 21" monitor, two computers underneath, two printers, on swivels on each side and a couple
    external drives. Its doesnt have any drawers but
    its bigs and roomy. The monitor is on a sheft elevated as well to eye height.

    Malice95
  • I did the same thing when I used to live with my parents. We had this old dining room table in one of our sheds. It was that big that I had trouble hauling it into the house :) Needless to say, that reduced the space in my room a fair bit! All I did was sand it back and put some varnish on it. It wasn't pretty, but it did a great job. As long as you have a good adjustable chair, so that the height of the desk isn't a big issue, then it's not too bad to use for long periods of time.

    I can't stand the desks that have "special" bits on them, or anything that I can kick underneath it. And I'm not too keen on keyboard draws either.

    I also have seen people put an old phone book under their monitors to add a bit of height, though I don't know what you could do if you wanted to reposition your keyboard.

  • We've got a huge dining room table in our office that works really well and provides space for two 20" monitors (one at each end) plus space for a scanner and whatever rackmount unit I'm experimenting with at the moment. We opted to use both leaves and expand out to something like 58" (maybe longer I don't recall now...), but one person would have plenty of space on it without leaves.

    I know it sounds strange but we got it for $75 at a garage sale, and it actually works better than the $400 desk I have at the house. It's actually the right height--I've found most desks to be way too low and I strain my neck looking down at the monitor all day.

    It's nice and heavy duty (solid wood 1" thick) so I don't worry about piling all this heavy stuff on it. We were trying to figure out how we could fit everything we needed into our rather small office, and this fit the bill perfectly.

    I do miss drawers somewhat, but it keeps me a little more organized not being able to pile papers into the middle drawer of my desk! And it looks really nice, to boot. Solid wood with a nice pretty finish and fancy antiquey looking legs. ;-)

    Just a thought. I think the lesson to be learned from this is: Give garage sales and flea markets a try! Sometimes you'll find just what you need. I would have probably built something myself if I didn't have such rich pickings at garage sales around my area.

  • I'd agree with that. If you aren't handy yourself go find a handyman/ custom cabinetry type guy and have him build it. Luckily my father is one of these and my desk is the buchered recombination of 2-3 desks he ripped from a church office. 3 feet deep, 5 feet long, a single set of drawers on the right and open on the left. Perfect.

    Rob
  • Check out http://www.bushfurniture.com. I bought model # HM12418 for about $200.00 from the local Best Buy. It houses my 19" and 17" monitors nicely. You might want to 86 the drawer for more shelf space.

    The other option is to look for plain, flat tables. We use some at work that are 26"(comfortable to type on) tall and about 6' long. We buy ours from the state prison, so I don't know how to get one personally.

    Good luck.

  • Re:Build it (Score:3)

    by technos ( 73414 ) on Saturday May 13, 2000 @10:55PM (#1074523) Homepage Journal
    Behr.. Decent stuff if you want it pretty, but any old exterior spar varnish will wear harder. Cheaper too! You could laminate an entire 8x10 sheet of plywood for $10. Painting over it isn't a terribly good idea though. You get 'bubbles' if you use anything but high-VOC enamel, and that is quite pricey and unpleasant smelling. PVC for a frame is a darn good idea. Strong, light, and easily machined. I wouldn't glue the all the corners though. Drill a hole through and secure with a pin and clevis or some plain old nuts and bolts. Easy to disassemble or adjust. Some wavy lock washers on both sides will help keep the bolt or bar seated. PVC can really be made 'adjustable' too. The common sizes are too widely spread to be a tight fit though. You might be able to get away with using filed down converting couplers. Remove the lip from the smaller side of the coupler with a file or Dremel tool, and drill some spaced holes in the small pipe and a single hole through the coupler. I'd almost recommend drilling the coupler oversize and using brass t-bushings set with pipe cement if they are to be adjusted often; PVC is abrasion prone, and those bolt threads are going to work like a file each and every adjustment. Oh, and I'd secure the top down with pipe strap or double-sided hangers. Use small hex-head bolts and countersink the top so that the bolt heads don't present an obstacle. Gravity isn't always reliable!! (Screws are always unreliably removable.) The price? Bells, whistles and nice laminated plywood shouldn't set you back more than $50. PVC and fittings are cheap. No real tools needed, as the lumber yard will prolly be happy to cut the top to size, as will the hardware store be happy to cut your PVC. Just have everything spec'd before you go!!
  • Look at something [poetictech.com] that was posted here before. Surey not what you're looking for, but still really neat (they have good ideas).

    Some of the other comments here mention building from scratch. That should provide the best results *if* you are a good carpenter. It takes a lot of skill to get something exactly right. And most people don't think of the subtle details which are the difference between a crappy desk and good ergo. A 3 degree decline here, 2 inches shorter there and you've got a completely different feel.

    I'd expect to end up using the build-up for 2 weeks and then come up with 10 ideas to improve it, rework it, and repeat.

  • if it's not in the ikea catalog with a funky name next to it, then it just doesn't exist. ikea is the god of furniture and home goods.


    When the pack animals stampede, it's time to soak the ground with blood to save the world. We fight, we die, we break our cursed bonds.

  • I'll second that! That desk KICKS ASS, even if it does have a rather unfortunate name... ;^)


    --

  • I can't find it on their site, do you have a URL?

  • I'm late on this article, it's already "older stuff", but in case someone's looking for ideas, the best desk you can have (IMHO, of course) is to take two filing cabinets (the two-high type, not four high; and the legal document width ones are too wide, too) and put a solid wooden door across it. first sand the door a little bit (lightly) and then give it a few coats of a nice natural stain. Then 4 or 5 coats of polyurethane to seal it against the coke/coffee/etc you will be spilling on your desk. I know people who have had this type of desk for more than 20 years and they still look great, and no other design gives you so much real estate.
  • ...but you should check out Microsphere [microsphere.com].

    Designed for the power user and totally ergo. They had a display at Comdex West in Vancouver. If I could have fit it in my pocket, I would have taken it home right there.

  • OM (Score:1)

    by cswan ( 6058 )
    Check out the 'L' shaped desk they have on sale at Office Despot (or was it OfficeMax?) for $79 this week. I've owned one of them for a long time, and it's actually a good, basic desk. You can fit up to three machines on it and scoot back and forth between each terminal.

    No, it's not fancy or anything--but it's a decent, cheap desk that's sturdy and just the right height.
  • It's a large table. That's it. It's about the right depth, and pleanty roomy for 3 big monitors plus speakers, books, and working area.
    Bought it for like $20 at the local warehouse store(Costco) and have been quite happy with it.
    If you've got the room, definatly worth it, especially if you have a few monitors, or like a lot of workspace, or just want to be able to hold a lan party in your room ;-)
  • Just use an old door. The hole where the doorknob was makes a nifty place to route cables and still be able to have the "desk" or table right up against the wall. Spend a little time sanding and finishing and it will look fine. Build any kind of legs that you like. I used scraps from various area construction jobs.

    I have basically just a big table built just like this. One pc is sprawled all over the top(no case, just an anti-static mat, power supply, drives and such scattered all about. The "real" working box is underneath along with a 2-1/2 drawer file cabinet on casters. The table is set up along with the chair for optimal foot/leg/butt/keyboard height and the 19" monitor is on a separate riser shelf that was built from more of the scrap. There is still plenty of space for other stuff although a large chunk is usually taken up by a pizza box and a half dozen or so Coke cans. ;-)

    Total cost $0.00 plus elbow grease, scrounge time, and gas to go and get the stuff.
  • Forgot to mention, a cheap way to make the desk more egonomic is to put your monitor on a large book.
    My old A+ certification book I no longer need raises it to just the right height(it's a pretty thick mofo) ;-)
  • If you do it where there are bugs (like I did) then you can use a propane torch and a tooth pick to help to get them out, just need to be delicate.

    By "bugs" do you mean things like ants and flies? Or do you mean bubbles that get into the varnish? If it's either of the two, I can see how a tooth pick can help get them out (though it would be rather difficult to clean varnish off ants and flies). But a propane torch!? First, isn't varnish flammable? Second, how would this help get bubbles out? And torch the ants? That would not help them one bit. I'm not sure whether you mean bugs literaly or figuratively anf you're really talking about bubbles.

  • Check out the Biomorph [biomorph-desk.com] line of desks. These desks have all of the ergo adjustments you could ever want, and they are quite large.

    I've been wanting their "Personal [biomorph-desk.com]" model for some time now, it's $1295.

  • But a propane torch!? First, isn't varnish flammable? Second, how would this help get bubbles out?
    I believe he means that you use the torch (or heat gun, or maybe even hair dryer) to soften the varnish to the point where it is gooey. This will let you carefully remove foreign objects in the varnish. This removal will leave a blemish, but if you're adding another coat you'll smooth it out somewhat.

    Burning shouldn't be an issue. If you even heat the varnish to the point where it begins to char (after it's dry you have to heat it enough to release flammable gases before it will burn, and this involves charring it), you've got it way too hot. If you do char it, you get to sand and re-finish that spot; fun, fun fun!
    --
    This post made from 100% post-consumer recycled magnetic

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