Computer desk from scratch

[Luke Townsley]

I work from home and am working on an upgrade to my work area. I've been having some minor neck and back issues from my computer work, so I'm getting a desktop computer to replace my laptop, pondering what to do about a chair, and designing a desk.

I need a ergonomic desk design that is fast to build.

I've thought about a trestle table with a keyboard tray.

I can't spend a lot of time on this project right now, so it has to be pretty simple.

Does anyone have any ergonomic design ideas? I often spend 3-4 hours days at the computer, so its a pretty big deal.

Luke Townsley

[Todd Burch]

I work from home and ... I often spend 3-4 hours days at the computer... Luke Townsley

Only 3-4 hours? I wish! I'm at this thing

all................................day............ .................long.

Probably 9 hrs a day for the day job, and some days, another 3-4 total either side of that on my own nickel.

I've had leg issues, feet issues, neck issues, back issues. The height of the monitor, keyboard, and your chair are important.

The table design doesn't really matter - it's pretty much just a height issue.

You can buy legs online - I've done this a couple times. A local mill shop might be able to make the top for you. That would leave you with needing to mortise the legs, make aprons and tenon them, and then put it all together. Of course, you can finish it too, but you can sub that out. Done that too. (I've even sub'ed out the machining and assembly.) Just depends on how much time I have.

[Larry Browning]

We have a couple folks here in my office that raised their work surface height so they could work standing up. One guy swears up and down that it has solved his neck and back pain issues. When I was in Sweden this past summer, the office cubes all had desktop motorized height adjustment. Each desk/work surface had a switch, sort of like on a car seat. I can't even imagine how much that cost. They had hundreds of work cubes each one had at least 2 separately adjustable work surfaces.

[Jamie Buxton]

If you're building a computer-oriented desk, keyboard trays are bad things, IMHO. The better solution is to make the desktop the right height for a keyboard or notebook computer to sit on.

Downsides to keyboard trays... They push you back away from the desk, so there's less surface available to you for papers, books, coffee cups, or whatever else you want within reach while you're working. They often don't have room for a mouse or other pointing device, so you're reaching from the keyboard on the tray to the mouse on the desk. They often bounce while you're typing. They force you to put the keyboard in one spot -- there's no sliding it to some other spot.

Instead, if you make the desk top the correct height, none of those problems exist.

Here's the deal with table height... Get you a good chair with a height adjustment. Sit in it with your feet on the floor, and your thighs approximately level. Hang your upper arms down, and bend your elbows so your forearms are roughly horizontal. Measure how high off the floor your forearms are. That's how high your desk should be. You'll generally find it is lower than standard office desks -- often 27"-28".

[Curt Harms]

I'll respectfully disagree with Jamie on the keyboard drawer. I have and use one but it's solid, doesn't bounce. I made it wide enough to accomodate an 18+" keyboard and trackball. Mine is 23 1/4" and another inch or inch and a half wouldn't hurt. Also trackballs don't move so they don't require a lot of space - mine needs a bit less than 5". My keyboard tray is about 6" lower than the arm rests and is about 5" above my thighs. The trackball is at the same level and sits on a wedge shaped platform that tilts the back end up about 5/8". My arm hangs down some from the elbow and my wrist stays straight. I'd recommend a sliding tray to your right if you're right handed. It's a handy surface that is available if the desk top is cluttered and good place for coffee cups snacks etc.

[Jerome Hanby]

Possibly it's my bad habits, but I hate keyboard drawers. Nothing to do with bounce or what not, they just keep me pushed away from the desk and leave me no place for my elbows. They also get in my way after I've been debugging for 8 hours straight and finally notice I put a semicolon at the end of my if line and I need to bang my head on the desk...

[Luke Townsley]

Thanks for the input, everyone. It's much appreciated.

[Curt Harms]

Possibly it's my bad habits, but I hate keyboard drawers. Nothing to do with bounce or what not, they just keep me pushed away from the desk and leave me no place for my elbows. They also get in my way after I've been debugging for 8 hours straight and finally notice I put a semicolon at the end of my if line and I need to bang my head on the desk...

I can see if you have no place to put your elbows it'd be a PITA. I got lucky (it certainly wasn't planning) but I have a chair from Staples or wherever with arms that are a few inches higher than the keyboard drawer. I can rest my elbows on them and the height is perfect. I don't spend hours like you do but it's pretty comfortable. The other thing that might matter is I got good quality hardware for the home-made drawer, really just a slab.