This isn’t news or anything, but apparently sitting in a chair all day is pretty bad for you,
even if you exercise. By contrast, using a desk which allows you to alternate between standing and sitting
can alleviate much of the the problem. So, when my work asked me if I wanted a standing desk, I said sure, but I
told them I didn’t have a doctor’s note or anything; the official policy was that I’d need a doctor’s note to get one.
Flash forward a few weeks and I was asked if I still wanted one, and I responded in the same way. They said “well, we
have one, so get your stuff off your desk, and it’ll be set up for you by Monday”. Cool! I then joined the cool kids
who stood up while they worked and looked ACTIVE!
Last week, we did a team reorganization, moving people’s seats around. When I came back in, I found that they’d given me
a much shorter standing desk; so small that I’d be looking down at my monitors, which is bad for my neck. I decided that
I needed a monitor stand and, since I had wood hanging around at home (and since I don’t like to be a PITA for HR), I
decided to make one
And here it is! I pulled all the pieces from another project I abandoned, so I was not out any money. The top I’d made
to practice planing, joining slats of wood together, and making and installing butterflies to deal with cracks. I made
it from birch (I think) or maybe spruce and it was about 33% wider than this; I didn’t need anything quite that wide, so
I just cut off the worse-looking side of the slab. The legs are just pieces of 2x4 resawn in half and then glued together.
The finish is two steps: first step, I did the vinegar and steel wool trick to give it an aged/weathered look, and the
second step is Danish oil.
Overall, I think it turned out pretty well. It looks old and kinda beat up, which is the look I was going for. Mostly, I
just wanted to a) get some practice in making some simple furniture, b) not spend a bunch of money, and c) have something
which won’t look horrible, but still looks different from everyone else’s monitor stands. And I think that I made my
goal!