It's not always easy to create a multi-monitor setup with 3 or more screens, but Mitch Haile's updated attic home office sees your three monitors and raises you two more. Not many people use 5 monitors all at once, but the overall look and feel of his home office accommodates for the wraparound display with some thoughtful planning (if not a little obsessive). Many of us would love to have a similar setup, but as Mitch mentions, this is an over-the-top version of a home office built both for function and as a hobby.
Mitch explains the method to his madness:
"...it's fun and probably qualifies as a hobby at this point. I've tried to create a space that is pleasant in which to work. I'm in here 60-80 hours a week during crunch time. It's way less depressing than long hours at an uncomfortable desk and phone books to boost the monitor height.
After many years of working at tables that were the wrong height, looking at small monitors, listening to loud computers, typing on cramped keyboards that hurt my shoulders, sitting in falling-apart chairs, I decided enough was enough.
Some people have over-the-top cars, I have an over-the-top office."
This outrageous arrangement of 5 monitors, one for every finger, ends up almost encircling the user with a whopping overall resolution of 11440 × 1600 pixels. This enormous screen real estate is attained with four 30" Apple Cinema Displays plus an additional 20" monitor, arranged in a semi-circle. Two monitors are plugged into the original ATI Radeon 5770. Only an extra ATI Radeon 5770 card is needed to drive the extra three monitors.
All of this available screen real estate does come with its own set of problems. Finding the mouse cursor can be problematic with 5 screens to span across, but by accessing a system setting in the mouse preferences (System Prefs -> Universal Access -> Mouse) he was able to adjust the cursor to an easy to find 96x96 pixel size.
Mitch uses a twofold desk system. The main desk is from Bush Furniture (Series C Collection), comprising of a credenza and a recess, allowing him to keep the monitors eye-level, while using the lower surface for his keyboard. His second desk is a Design Within Reach Dordoni Worktable.
The front desk is used for administrative tasks, like paying bills and paperwork. We won't get into the details of his Mac Pro, but if you're curious it's an 8-core with 32 GB of RAM and 38 TB of storage (in RAID drives 8 TB + 12 TB + 18 TB Drobo Pro).
Lastly, Mitch doesn't just code in his attic home office. An Eames lounge chair partnered with a Toto Cube Lamp allows him to put up his feet and read some of the many books creates a comfortable space to enjoy even when not surrounded by 5 monitors.
Readers wanting to try and get a similar setup should be wary of the overall cost needed to follow Mitch's footsteps. A more affordable route would consists of a (perhaps Apple refurbed) Mac Pro with two new 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Displays. The Mac Pro can drive two 27" monitors out of the box.
As such, you'd be looking at half the total resolution of Mitch's setup, but you'd still be spending at least $4,300. The only way to cut costs further would be to switch over to a PC with 24" monitors instead of 27" or 30" screens. That would whittle down the cost to about half of the similar Mac setup ($2,000). Alternatively, an iMac could be hooked up to another 27" Apple Display, for around $2,200 USD. Multi-monitor displays are possible with laptops, but usually the more performing graphics card of a computer desktop is needed to drive 2+ screens.
Resources:
Furniture:
Herman Miller Embody chair
(2) Eames DCM chairs
Eames Lounge Chair
Bush Furniture Series C collection desk
Design Within Reach Dordoni Worktable
(2) 30" storage cabinets
36" lateral file cabinet
Ergotron LX monitor arms
(2) Artemide Tolomeo Lamps, (2) Tolomeo Minis, (2) Artemide Open Table lamps
Hardware:
Apple Mac Pro 2.8 GHz (32 GB of RAM 38 TB of storage, and a external Blu-Ray burner)
(4) 30" Apple Cinema Displays
HP 20" monitor
1 GHz Athlon PC
MacBook Air 13" 2.1 GHz
DroboPro connected over iSCSI with 18 TB of storage
12 TB Mercury Pro quad disk enclosure
Mac Mini Server acting a HTPC
(2) Kinesis Freestyle keyboards
Linksys RV082 router
HP ProCurve 1800-24G GigE switch
Verizon MiFi
X10 home automation throughout
Onkyo TX-SR573
MORE MULTIPLE MONITOR HOME OFFICES
How $500 in Graphics Cards Can Run 5 Monitors
Simple 3-Monitor Setup Maximizes Screen Real Estate
Multi-Monitor Homes
Pahana Alo's Multi-Monitor Setup
IKEA Jonas Workstations
(Images with permission: by Mitch Haile)
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Comments (8)
love the setup. The plans really help to understand the space.
Thanks for the post.
I'm almost more amazed by the number of phones than monitors
Only one with a good eye can tell how much Mitch has invested in this office space (furniture and tech). Nothing shines, but he has got the top of the market brands. Saw my first Tolomeo 15 yrs ago. Still in love from then..
@kts911: I counted 10 phones - 7 on the desk with the monitors, two on the other desk, and one on the bookshelf in the seating area (in between the bottles of Pellegrino). Tell me if I missed any...
10 sounds about right -- there's 6 cordless Panasonic phones (2 pair with cell phones, 4 are just tied to one Comcast VoIP "landline"), 2 Polycom speaker phones, 2 cell phones. The picture at the top of this page has a Polycom VoIP phone + Plantronics headset that's in the closet and no longer in use. I really like that cordless headset except that it can't control the phone, so I didn't keep the VoIP service after my last company was bought and I'm back to using wired headsets with the cordless handsets for walking around the house.
I bought the 2nd set of Panasonics when the first ones batteries wouldn't hold a charge. I assumed that they used proprietary battery packs like the bad old days. When I got the new phones, I realized Panasonic uses regular AAA NiMH batteries. But I liked the cell feature so I ended up keeping both.
I'm on the phone a lot...
-Mitch
The new iMac can run 2 extra thunderbolt/mini displayport displays out of the box- a total of 3 screens. You mentioned it could only drive one.
I'd like to know when he purchased the 30" cinema displays. I have one and would like another, but Apple stop making them years ago.
Thanks for sharing with us... I've personally worked hard to configure a setup which is productive for the 8 to 12 hours i spend during work days in my personal space. http://danielheth.com/office