Perfect Desk

Early in my computer related life – that means being 15+ years old – especially at parents house – I had a prefabricated desk with stand for monitor and for all other possible things. Printer on top. CD/DVD all over the place. Things like that.

The Past

Some time later my room needed complete ‘rework’ and I had some VERY temporary setup before all things were back to ‘normal’ 🙂

After buying a house with a mortgage loan in 2011 and finishing it for about a year every day after the work and in the weekends – I moved to a couch.

Still in the Past

For many years I resided on that couch with some IKEA laptop stand and both beadm(8) and automount(8) solutions were invented there – at least after the daily work I could work on things that matter.

… and with my ThinkPad W520 laptop on that IKEA stand as well.

This is probably one of the reasons I wanted everything to work on FreeBSD so hard as I only had one computer at a time – not that I do not want the same thing today – I still do – but more on that later.

Before the C-19 pandemic – both me and my wife worked in the office in the city – out of the house – wasting our money/resources/time on daily travels to first get there and then to get back home after the work.

After C-19 came in 2020 everything changed – some things for the better fortunately.

Both me and my wife were forced to work from home all the time – during C-19 lockdowns.

At the beginning we both used our dining room table for that – I liked that private coworking family space … but my wife said that she can not fully work when she hears some strange things like iSCSI/protocols/latency/filesystems/redundancy/availability/… all the time and probably several dozen things more.

She moved to another room with some really simple desk setup with a dedicated monitor … while I moved to a couch with both my private and company laptops.

Fast forward two years – to 2022 year – we made a big overhaul in our house – we added a heat pump – we added a underfloor heating on the ground level – we made a change from panels to ceramic tiles on the floor … lots of things – took about halt a year of life.

After that hard period I was thinking … why I do not have a dedicated desk? … so I started thinking what I would need and planning how it would look like … knowing that I need to plan if for both me and my wife in the same room.

Plan

After using various desk over the past and after long hours spent on the couch I had specific requirements from my future desk setup.

These are:

• Needs to be deep enough that I can stretch my legs comfortably – 85 cm deep minimum.
• Multiple shelves and storage space for various things.
• Lots of horizontal space for many laptops and other computers.
• Some light that will make everything ‘light’ and visible.

Assignment

This is the available space I got for that assignment.

So I started drawing with pencil on A4 sheets. Lots of variations. Options. Possibilities. Consulting with my wife what would work best for both of us.

Project

I wanted to share with You the plans that I used to build this desk – but looking at my notes – it does not bring anything.

In the past I usually built all of the custom furniture in my house by myself – four closets in different rooms for example or some other stuff – but this one … I wanted it to be perfect and done by some professional – to make sure it will not piss me off that I forgot something in the process.

I also decided that it will be made in two steps instead all at once. The reason behind that decision was to get to know what is missing and what I can add/change in the next step. After completing the ‘setup’ I believe it was a really good decision.

Here is the first worktop that was delivered.

Later the 3D shelves on my side were added.

Cable Management

I really wanted to make sure that all cables will be either hidden inside or properly managed – and I believe I succeeded here.

My side …

… and some closed space on my side.

Now wife side.

… and hidden place for cables on her side.

After life ‘happened’ it also worked really well.

Even our cat kinda approved the setup 🙂

Real Life – Stage One

After we filled that new work space with rest of the stuff – it looked more or less like that.

Some stuff on the floor – some on the top – some to figure out where …

Stage Two

After spending some time here – about half a year – with the new desk – I knew how I would like it to evolve – to see the rest of the space populated.

Additional workspace on the left and additional shelves on top of that.

Below you will find a diff(1) between the fist and second stage.

diff(1)

Here is how the old and new Stage Two versions compare – first the ‘older’ one.

… and now after adding the ‘missing’ part.

… and no – boxes on the top are not my wife’s shoes – I just used the empty boxes for my stuff.

Real Life – Stage Two

After almost two years with the setup – it looks more or less like that today – crowded with various computers of other stuff.

I also added second light source.

After I was done with helping my peers with Windows systems its a lot less crowded.

… but having a multi-functional desk – I have a lot more possibilities now.

I really like additional space and space to run multiple computers at the same time.

As for the some of hardware components I use – Tiny Undervalued Hardware Companions – here they are.

I hope you all will find (or design) your favorite space to exist.

EOF