Stand-up kind of guy…

Even though I work in construction, I’m one of the guys that has a ‘desk job’. As a project manager, I’m on the phone more and more, sending stuff by email, etc. And while I spend most of the day at my desk, I do a lot of getting up to grab files, look at plans, file submittals, and so I am getting up and sitting back down quite a bit. So the concept of a ’stand-up desk’ has intrigued me for quite awhile.

Last place I worked we had a bar-height table for reviewing plans, with a nice high stool on rollers. I would use that a fair amount when reviewing plans and what not. Just as often standing as I flip through pages as using the stool. At my new place, it seems I am up and down from my chair more than ever, so thoughts of a stand up desk have been creeping back to the fore-front of my mind.

There’s a workstation that Ikea has from their Fredrik series, the shelves can be shifted around to the height you want. I could put one shelf almost at the top for the monitor, the desk at standing height, and the other shelf underneath for some files and my CPU to sit on. I’m still thinking this may be the way to go eventually, combined with a high tabletop for spreading plans and such out on next to it in a L configuration.

I stopped in there yesterday to take another look at it, see if it’s something that would work for what I need, and I found a couple other options. One of them is their Broder system - it’s wall-mounted, with a variety of options, including a desktop surface. They showed a kids room  using this to include desk, shelves, shoe rack and clothes rack. And there was a similar setup that centers around a lundry setup that could work as well.

Thing is, I don’t want to invest in all this if it isn’t going to work out for me in the end. Ok, they’re all adjustable, so I can lower them in the end, but… I had a way to try this out sitting in my garage. A drawing table that someone was going to toss out that I was able to snag for free. It turns out at the heightest setting, it is about where I need it to be. I hope.

I set it up today and am trying it out now. I did grab a bar-stool as well, cause I know standing full-time, right out of the gate is not gonna work. Hopefully I can ease in to this over the next couple weeks without killing my back. I’m using it right now, and I think it will help my wrists a bit, because I am hovering over the keyboard, not angling up at it from my chair.

As I go through this for a bit I will post some updates and track down a few of the links I came across lately that helped convince me to give this a shot.