The $100 Dollar Ikea Stand-Up Desk

Over the course of the day, I spent way too much time sitting. I’ve been looking for a standup desk for a while, yet I don’t have the budget for a Geek desk. A couple weeks ago I was reading an article from Boundless Learning (check them out, they’re reinventing the textbook), and decided to follow their advice and build my own.

Ten minutes later, my Ikea order was placed. **The total cost + shipping = $100 dollars. **

What You Need to Buy

It’s ridiculously easy. First purchase the desk-top. There’s a couple choices – I chose the black one for $10.99. It looks pretty decent.

Next you need the adjustable legs at $15 a pop.

A week later my order arrived, and unfortunately there was some damage to the desk top (working on getting a replacement right now). I’m not going to complicate the build process – all you need to do is follow instructions, and screw the legs into the desk-top (shown below). Then select the height you want, adjust the legs, and you’re done!

Initial Reactions

As you can see from the photo below, my 27″ iMac fits very easily on the desk. there’s plenty of room to rest my hands, and it’s a pretty sturdy workspace. In the future, I may build my own desk-top (I have a feeling moving from apartment to apartment could damage the surface, but you get what you pay for right?).

I’m 5′ 11″, and the height is a little low, I’m thinking about adding shims in the future, yet too much height will make the desk a little unsteady. The computer is not up in my face, so I have to tilt the screen a little. Again, I could put the computer on a box and be perfectly fine – I will continue to tinker with it. Update: If the desk is too short, just buy bed-risers 🙂

Overall I’m pretty happy with how the desk turned out, and I am excited to get up on my feet!

Let me know what you think on Twitter,