So I have been meaning to post something for a few months. I recently changed jobs, and now work from home a lot more. I also found my old Staple desk (circa 1997) was not really working as well as it might (having added an extra keyboard drawer, mouse pad runners, replaced the desktop with plywood, it was betraying its MDF cheap build quality).
I also had 6 screens hanging off one monitor pole, which was more than the poor thing could take.
So I set about building a new one. I knew I wanted a solid wooden desk, rather than MDF, and I also knew I wanted to have a way to hide about 30 power leads, monitor cables, USB chargers, network cables etc. but also be able to get some of the kit out when I needed to (e.g. laptop chargers when I needed to use the laptop elsewhere).
In the end I bought 4 desktops from Ikea, all 3cm thick beech. The combined weight of these is about 100KG. I then bought 6 height adjustable legs. I built a U shaped desk, with a hinged top – within it, I’ve hidden two 12 way extension leads. One of the “U” shapes is not installed (the study isn’t quite big enough).
The hinged top is on pneumatic arms (like on car boot lids) to keep it up once it is up – it weighs 25KG. I learnt how to French polish (applying a layer of Shellac in alcohol to make a really shiny wooden top) to the desktop.
I also built a holder for two wireless chargers on the desk, one for my personal phone, the other for my work phone.
Unfortunately, after installing 6 monitors, plus two portable monitors, 6 laptops, 3 docks, keyboards and mice, it turned out this was a bit wobbly. The original desk legs were rated to 15KG each. I decided to upgrade to a motorised height adjustable desk frame (actually built for two desks – but it can handle 200KG). The main struggle was getting a sturdy set of desk legs – extending ones to lift 200KG are almost impossible to find – the ikea desk legs I had originally had snapped retention rings on them due to the weight.
Down -
Up -
Under the desk is a Lack rack (an IKEA Lack table, which happens to be 19” across), I have (from top to bottom) a netgear router (R9000), a stereo Amp, a 24 port POE gigabit switch, 24 Port gigabit Switch, a 10Gbps switch and my 4U server. The server has 8 x 10TB disks on an 8805 adaptec RAID card, 5 x 1TB disks, 3 x 4TB disks on an 5805 adaptec, 3 x 1TB SSDs in RAID 0, and a 240GB SSD as the boot drive, with a 5960X (watercooled in a 4U case) on an X99-WS and a Titan X to do Plex transcoding and Streaming. It also has a thunderbolt card, 10Gbps NIC, and a TV tuner (for plex).
On the furthest left is a surface laptop 2, a portable USB C monitor, then a surface book 2 (both my company’s), on the desk on the left is my old gaming laptop (10th birthday this year), recently upgraded with a quad core core 2 (which is about the speed of an M3 processor in a tablet), under the middle screen a Samsung Book (10.6” windows tablet). On the right is another portable monitor and on the table underneath is my newer gaming laptop. At the back of the desk on the right is my work laptop (a dell latitude).
On the top row of monitors are two dell 24” U2415 IPS monitors (some of the last 1920 * 1200 monitors), surrounding a P2715 27” 4K monitor. On the bottom row is another U2415 IPS, an X27 Predator (4K, 144Hz, 1000 nit HDR) and a U2408 IPS monitor. The portable monitors are linked to the Surface Book 2, the bottom row monitors are all attached to the dell work PC, and also to my main rig. The monitor on the right is also linked to the server, along with the mouse and keyboard under the desk.
Behind the main keyboard is a Mojo DAC to the Amp, on a USB switch (so I can toggle DAC, keyboard and mouse onto the main rig or my work laptop). The keyboard tray is on rails so it tucks neatly under the desk. Underneath the desk is a USB powered RGB light strip just to give a nice glow to the desk in the dark.
Finally on the far right of the desk is a old PC I rebuilt – my second ever home-built PC. It was an absolute dog, but it looks nice (and retro – 11 years old now). I have it built in a Thermaltake P3 case, with the original Delta V3 waterblock from my first ever watercooling loop. It has the last ever Nvidia intel board (790i Ultra), with a Q9400, a single stick of 8GB of RAM (it won’t boot with more), a 280 GTX (a nice counterpoint to the SLI GTX2080s in the rig behind it). It is connected to an old VA 1280x1024 panel. My eventual plan is to wall mount them both.
I also had 6 screens hanging off one monitor pole, which was more than the poor thing could take.
So I set about building a new one. I knew I wanted a solid wooden desk, rather than MDF, and I also knew I wanted to have a way to hide about 30 power leads, monitor cables, USB chargers, network cables etc. but also be able to get some of the kit out when I needed to (e.g. laptop chargers when I needed to use the laptop elsewhere).
In the end I bought 4 desktops from Ikea, all 3cm thick beech. The combined weight of these is about 100KG. I then bought 6 height adjustable legs. I built a U shaped desk, with a hinged top – within it, I’ve hidden two 12 way extension leads. One of the “U” shapes is not installed (the study isn’t quite big enough).
The hinged top is on pneumatic arms (like on car boot lids) to keep it up once it is up – it weighs 25KG. I learnt how to French polish (applying a layer of Shellac in alcohol to make a really shiny wooden top) to the desktop.
I also built a holder for two wireless chargers on the desk, one for my personal phone, the other for my work phone.
Unfortunately, after installing 6 monitors, plus two portable monitors, 6 laptops, 3 docks, keyboards and mice, it turned out this was a bit wobbly. The original desk legs were rated to 15KG each. I decided to upgrade to a motorised height adjustable desk frame (actually built for two desks – but it can handle 200KG). The main struggle was getting a sturdy set of desk legs – extending ones to lift 200KG are almost impossible to find – the ikea desk legs I had originally had snapped retention rings on them due to the weight.
Down -
Up -
Under the desk is a Lack rack (an IKEA Lack table, which happens to be 19” across), I have (from top to bottom) a netgear router (R9000), a stereo Amp, a 24 port POE gigabit switch, 24 Port gigabit Switch, a 10Gbps switch and my 4U server. The server has 8 x 10TB disks on an 8805 adaptec RAID card, 5 x 1TB disks, 3 x 4TB disks on an 5805 adaptec, 3 x 1TB SSDs in RAID 0, and a 240GB SSD as the boot drive, with a 5960X (watercooled in a 4U case) on an X99-WS and a Titan X to do Plex transcoding and Streaming. It also has a thunderbolt card, 10Gbps NIC, and a TV tuner (for plex).
On the furthest left is a surface laptop 2, a portable USB C monitor, then a surface book 2 (both my company’s), on the desk on the left is my old gaming laptop (10th birthday this year), recently upgraded with a quad core core 2 (which is about the speed of an M3 processor in a tablet), under the middle screen a Samsung Book (10.6” windows tablet). On the right is another portable monitor and on the table underneath is my newer gaming laptop. At the back of the desk on the right is my work laptop (a dell latitude).
On the top row of monitors are two dell 24” U2415 IPS monitors (some of the last 1920 * 1200 monitors), surrounding a P2715 27” 4K monitor. On the bottom row is another U2415 IPS, an X27 Predator (4K, 144Hz, 1000 nit HDR) and a U2408 IPS monitor. The portable monitors are linked to the Surface Book 2, the bottom row monitors are all attached to the dell work PC, and also to my main rig. The monitor on the right is also linked to the server, along with the mouse and keyboard under the desk.
Behind the main keyboard is a Mojo DAC to the Amp, on a USB switch (so I can toggle DAC, keyboard and mouse onto the main rig or my work laptop). The keyboard tray is on rails so it tucks neatly under the desk. Underneath the desk is a USB powered RGB light strip just to give a nice glow to the desk in the dark.
Finally on the far right of the desk is a old PC I rebuilt – my second ever home-built PC. It was an absolute dog, but it looks nice (and retro – 11 years old now). I have it built in a Thermaltake P3 case, with the original Delta V3 waterblock from my first ever watercooling loop. It has the last ever Nvidia intel board (790i Ultra), with a Q9400, a single stick of 8GB of RAM (it won’t boot with more), a 280 GTX (a nice counterpoint to the SLI GTX2080s in the rig behind it). It is connected to an old VA 1280x1024 panel. My eventual plan is to wall mount them both.
