Ugly Standing Desk Modification

Felice has been having some back problems of late and one of the main culprits is her “workstation”. It’s a wood desk from the OSU surplus sale with the insert from a rolltop desk supporting the PC and two monitors. The monitors are the correct height if she is standing, but the keyboard and mouse are on the surface of the desk and really only useful when sitting. Since she rarely gets to sit*, it means she has to lean over when typing. Also this is her workbench and the height is not optimal. Compounding the problem is that she now uses an adjustable office stool that is never set to a low chair type height, so she leans over in it when typing as well.
*kids, they keep you hopping…

Here’s her old setup. She once pulled the PC off of its perch because she walked away while wearing her headphones. So after looking for an inexpensive solution at a variety of garage sales, surplus and thrift stores without success, I was commanded to do anything to fix the problem, as soon as possible.

The new setup, standing…

And sitting…she is at roughly the same level in either position now.

She gives me the thumbs up!

The solution was to make two panels that sandwich pieces of 2x4 (notice the thin spacers on the side of the 2x4 that bump the width out to match the leg width). The 2x4 raises the desk up and the panels are screwed into the legs and side of the desk. It’s surprisingly rigid.

Not the plywood doesn’t go all the way up to the desktop. I wish it did, but I had just enough plywood laying around to achieve this and I didn’t have time to go out and buy another sheet. Painting/staining and sanding seemed superfluous.