DIY Standing Desk

There are plenty of articles discussing the health implications of sitting down for long periods of time. I’ve been experiencing some minor lower back pain as of late, so I decided to explore the possibility of using a standing desk while I work. In order to save money, I avoided the more sophisticated desk options and opted to put one together myself.

As with most DIY projects, I started by heading over to Bing Google and seeing what ideas were already out there. A few clicks in, I came across Colin Nederkoorn’s solution. To build his standing desk, Colin elected to build a monitor and keyboard platform and stack it on his existing desk. Since this approach was extremely cheap and easy, I figured I’d give it a shot.

Supplies

As Colin’s blog points out, the only supplies necessary are some screws and a few cheap IKEA pieces.

IKEA stuff:

Other stuff:

Directions

  1. Assemble the side table

  2. Using the 1” screws, attach the shelf brackets to the front legs of the table

  3. Using the 1 ¾” screws, attach the shelf to the top of the brackets

  4. Place the table on your desk and move all your stuff

  5. Stand up!

Results

Here are a few shots of my new setup:

https://silvrback.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/98c210e2-28c9-4241-a6f4-21afcf0f7acc/2014-02-09 12.03.09_large.jpg

IKEA standing desk

https://silvrback.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/4b360beb-a372-4cc4-b614-2a4aad4d8994/2014-02-09 12.03.17_large.jpg

IKEA standing desk

The jury is still out on whether or not standing up will ease my back pain, but if you’re in the market for an inexpensive standing desk, I would definitely recommend this solution.

Note: 20-minute setup time does not include the hours spent wandering through IKEA trying to find the three small items needed for this project