Workspace experts have come up with a brilliant idea to help you stop spending so much time in your office chair: a desk that makes you stay active while working. How is that possible?
Enter: standing desk.
Standing desks vary in their styles, design, and complexity. While there are manufactured solutions available in shops, you can also build one yourself without too much trouble. Whether you’re modifying a piece of furniture you already have or building a new desk with adjustable height, you will save up a lot of money if you decide to take on this DIY project.
In this article, we will teach you how to build a standing desk out of a regular desk, but also how to build a desk with adjustable height that you can use for both sitting and standing.
How to Make Desk a Standing Desk?
As you can imagine, there are many ways to turn a regular desk into a standing desk. However, only some solutions are genuinely efficient. We will present you with the two best solutions for turning any desk into a standing one.
Box or Textbook Stack
One of the simplest ways to make a temporary standing desk is to pile up textbooks or use a big box (or both) on your existing desk. In our experience, books are better because they allow for fine adjustments.
If you plan to work with a computer, you will need two or three stacks of textbooks. One for the keyboard, one for the mouse (if you’re using one), and one for the monitor. If you’re using a laptop only, then one is probably enough.
The bad side to this method is that it’s not quite stable. Gadgets can easily fall down, and it’s only a temporary solution. The good side is that if you have enough books, you can optimally adjust the standing desk and assemble and disassemble it as you please, at no cost.
The Coffee Table on a Desk
Another no or little cost method to make a do-it-yourself standing desk is to put a coffee table on top of a regular desk. Then you can put the monitor or laptop on the coffee table and keep the keyboard on the desk.
This method can also take the other direction: if your coffee table has a big enough surface, you can place your regular desk on top of it.
While this method costs nothing if you already have a coffee table or very little if you purchase one or two on Amazon, it has similar pitfalls to the previous solution: stability. Also, the coffee table solution is less adjustable than the textbook one.
How to Make a Makeshift Standing Desk?
If you want more from a standing desk than just upgrading an existing desk, you will need to put some additional effort into it. Let’s see our options.
Piecing Together Furniture
Quite affordable pieces of furniture can easily be pieced together to convert a traditional desk into a standing one.
For example, a number of people use the cheap LACK coffee table from IKEA on top of their regular desk or dining table to make a standing desk.
Built-in Wall Desk
A simple and cheap solution that requires barely any effort is to take a long wooden deck and build it into a wall using wall wood brackets. This kind of standing desk can be a single piece or a corner desk running across two adjacent walls. Since this desk is not adjustable, you can complement it with a high stool so that you can shift between standing and sitting seamlessly.
How to Make a Homemade Standing Desk?
While the options mentioned above are quick and easy solutions to making a standing desk, a homemade standing desk is something else. A standing desk with adjustable heights can significantly improve your workstation ergonomics. When it’s set up lower, you can complement it with an ergonomic chair and rest from time to time.
You can make a pneumatic or crank adjustable standing desk. Both are pretty demanding skill-wise, so we strongly recommend you educate yourself first.
How to Build an Adjustable Standing Desk – PneumaticVersion
Here is a detailed step-by-step tutorial on how to build a pneumatic standing desk that requires no electricity. It consists of a pneumatic mechanism, handles, and a simple wooden deck on top. If you do it correctly, you can adjust the height of your desk by rotating a handle.
How to Build an Adjustable Standing Desk – Electric Version
An even better option is to build an electric standing desk. It requires a few additional steps, but it’s more practical than the pneumatic version in the long run since it works with a push of a button.
One option is to build everything from scratch by yourself, as shown in this video, which takes more time, effort, and tools but definitely less money.
Final Word
Making a standing desk can be free of charge if you assemble your existing furniture into a standing desk. You can also purchase an adjustable frame that only needs a wooden plate finish.
Both options cost less than purchasing a new desk, and you can have some fun building your ideal workstation.
After you’re done, you can check out our guide on setting up your work desk to make the most out of your new work environment.
