DIY Project: 20 Dollar Monitor Stand

The bummer of working at an office, other than the commute and the occasional annoying co-worker, is that it's hard to make your cubicle really feel like your office space. Yes you can bring photos of family and personal tchotckes, but it's never truly going to feel like home. Plus, in this economy, office managers are going to give you the bare minimum to make a comfortable working set-up.

Take our friend Emily for example. She was working with her monitor propped up on a cardboard box for a year and a half until she decided to take matters into her own hands. At Ikea she bought at 31-inch Hensvik shelf and 4-inch Capita legs. For $20 she had a clean and simple monitor stand that lets her tuck peripherals underneath, and even accommodates her kitty tchotckes.

Thanks Emily!

Comments (8)

This is a great idea and it really looks nice too.

Not only does it create more storage space on her desk, but it brings the monitor up to be more even with eye-level, which means less stress on the neck.

Thanks for sharing. Will recommend this to our customers!

My ikea actually displays these with instructions on what parts to get to duplicate it. My desk features the same monitor stand :)

I did it with a scrap we used to make our desk. Used 4 squarish silver napkin rings. My wife's 17" PB slides perfectly underneath.

Monitor stands are the worst thing you could do when it comes to good ergonomics when working at a desk, especially in front of a computer screen.

Any ergonomics/human factors book published in the last 20-30 years will point out that the optimal height of a computer screen should be at a height where the top edge of the screen is at or BELOW eye level.

Putting your monitor at a higher elevation can eventually lead to neck and back pain due to the increased strain put on your spinal cord.

If anything, you should find a way to place the monitor base BELOW the height of your desktop surface.

brzilian: Our facilities group brought in an ergo person for me, and she actually made me get a monitor stand. I work on the command line a lot, and she realized I'm often looking at the bottom of the screen, so it definitely needed raising. I was getting a crick in my neck from looking down all the time.

I loved this post so much that I was inspired to do the same thing: http://www.flickr.com/photos/botafogo/3463622428/

From an ergonomic point of view, this monitor stand was exactly what I needed. I spend a lot of time looking at the bottom two-thirds of my monitor.

Does anyone know the name of the arm rest in front of the mouse is? or where I could get one?

The mouse wrist rest is by IMAK, ergoBeads

I love it - got it at Staples.