Ok, moving the home office soon & leaving my home-made desk behind, so after some suggestions for a decent (but not stupid expensive) desk. Ideally after something that’ll accommodate some nearfield monitors at ear height without looking crap and have good space for 3+ 24″ monitors & lots of gadgets. No sliding out keyboard trays as those are the work of the devil. Any ideas? ta!

Take your old desk with you?

I think you will find it difficult to find a desk that will accomodate some monitors at ear height.

I would go to Ikea and look at their desks, I am thinking about getting a Galant corner desk, about £140 but it is a big solid desk. Then have a look for one of the shelving units that can accomodate the monitors.

galants are good or 2 smaller ikea tables put together works well. then get a floating monitor arm 😀 i still havnt taken a piccy.. i’ll get on it shortly!

Take your old desk with you?

It’s kinda built into the room, not an option unfortunately. Galant looks pretty good

Ikea all the way – their office stuff is pretty well made and some flexible options. (Yes, we have Galant in the office).

Go to a general auction.

Our home office (my mrs and I both work from home at times) has a 2 metre long ikea Vika table top each, with a mix of drawer and shelving units as legs.

We have cheap monitor arms (like this but black. If it was 3×24″ though I’d get one designed for three monitors, ideally wall-mounting if that’s an option. Ikea do great cable management trays that screw to the underside of the desk too, we have a couple so a big powerstrip each lives in there along with power adaptors, excess cable, etc. Keeps it nice and neat and away from your legs.

For the speakers, I’d look to specialist stands or just get the little wooden drawer units to put them on – gets some more storage on the desk for cables and other odds and sods.

If you’re anywhere near the bristol area, I have an Ikea Galant desk for sale for £30 (£140 new). In very good condition, selling as it’s now surplus to requirements & frankly too big for our spare room.

rondo, could be tempted by that. Got any pics?

Monitor arms:

http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2007/09/lcd-monitor-arms.html

Kitchen worktop and some 2×1 softwood batons.

Rondo101, what size, shape and finish is the desk.

I would probably be interested, pass by Bristol most weeks on my way to and from Devon.

If you have a pic that would be great email is in profile.

Obviously Pedalhead has first refusal as he started the post.

This is the only picture I’ve got, as it’s now disassembled & propped against the wall. The shot was taken in artificial light, so the colour is slightly different than below. I think it’s a “birch” finish. Standard galant sizing – check the Ikea website for exact dimensions (edit – google says at it’s longest edges it’s 120cm deep by 160cm wide).

Email s DOT raison @ hotmail DOT co DOT uk if you want to pop round to take a look.

And yes, the carpet does need a good vacuuming.

We’re in Sheffield and have some square galant desks in white for sale

great nick, one has an extension

rondo, looks good, I’ll send you a mail shortly. Thanks Pook, probably a bit far for me 🙂

heres mine, I didnt realise you had a projector also so probably not geekier but I’ve hidden all my toys and got a tree 😀 whoop

I got my desk built for me, maybe its something you could look into if the ikea ones dont float your boat… likewise I have a friend with a desk thats 12foot long and on motors so it can lift to any height in the room 😀

for monitor arms, id get what I have because they are cheap and work a charm – http://www.allcam.biz/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=29&products_id=420

you can get quad screen ones or just get a pair of those and another screen hehee 😀

Ikea sell the raised bit on this desk separately if you didn’t want to go the monitor arm route http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S19876232 –

The brackets are http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/10168720 with a top on them.

nice, Alex :). Cheers for the links Tom.

Stupid question, but looking at the Galant pic, if you were sitting in the curve of the desk, wouldn’t the wheels on your average office chair be bumping into the desk leg on the right? It looks like it pokes out rather a lot.

Ikea kitchen table, unexpanded, with 4 monitors and a helluvalota room left over:

Nice alexxx. You should submit that to the LifeHacker featured workspace collection:
http://lifehacker.com/tag/featuredworkspace/

Lots of inspiration there for the rest of us.

just curious, but what do you do with 4 monitors?

Multiple monitors rock! Great for gaming (if you have grunty hardware), and google earth zooming in from space looks brilliant! You also just get used to the screen space pretty quickly. Even a single 24″ screen feels cramped now.

just curious, but what do you do with 4 monitors?

The glow comforts them in their mum’s basement.

really 🙄

ahh, I thought it was a work thing, different monitors for different apps, didn’t realise you could have them to show parts of the same image

I use mine for different apps or expanding apps like timeline or render based stuff or even music, just got mr ups to drop off another toy, heres the desk in standy up mode! going to get an angled rack i think as i quite like it up here 😀

sorry for the thread spam but after standing up with this badboy id advise you try it!

OK, so I can geek out about plenty of things, and the space aeround me is important.

But good grief – you guys are at another level..!

😀 i’ll take that as a compliment

Bought 2 of the same desk, and doubled the shelving up on one side, good storage underneath and good keyboard trays for calendar notes and work.

A cheap alternative at 60 notes for both.

The ikea Jerker desk used to be the case-modder / equipment nerd / people-who-grew-up-watching-80’s-teen-movies-about-cool-geeks-hacking-the-pentagon desk of choice, but they don’t do them anymore. Don’t know if there will be any floating around on ebay