As a writer my work is about sitting by the computer all day (and some nights . When my back began feeling stiff I decided I needed to change my work environment. The solution was to modify the desk so that I could stand instead of sitting.

I wanted to avoid spending a lot of money. Therefore I had to build it myself. At first I thought I would need to build something from scratch out of wood. Then I came to think of my daughter’s building toy Tongoys. It can be used to build a house, a bed, a castle or whatever one can imagine. Why not a standing desk?

When the measuring was done the fun part began. I needed to design the table. At first I thought of making it as simple as possible with only a flat surface to put my laptop on. With the Tongoys solution it was easy to make it a little more advanced so I added a raised shelf to put my 22 inch screen and speakers on and another one inside the desk to hold my six external hard drives. That way I could make room for other things in the cabinet currently holding the disks. Designing my desk took about an hour.

Building it took another two hours. I made it very sturdy. It can easily hold my weight standing on it (if for some reason I would want that). At the back of the table surface I left an opening so I can have the computer cables out of sight.

Once the work was done I put it on top of the desk to see if the design worked. It did! As an added bonus I got a lot of storage space under the desk. The subwoofer fit nicely in there. I am thinking of also putting my printer and scanner there and get rid of another cabinet.

I admit this solution isn’t the most subtle one. It is made from a toy. It does, however, serve its purpose more that well.