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Gereghty Standing Desk Project

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When it comes to ergonomics, no one I know balls as hard as moi. I’m almost a dozen posts deep in my blog, I do some work in the field and I try to live what I preach.

After I wrote the article about “How to Make Your Own Standing Desk,” I realized that even though I consider myself to be the Roberto Alomar of ergonomics, my standing desk was still an upside down tray, positioned on the second drawer of my bedroom dresser, and an old dusty file box. It seemed very odd that someone so deeply invested in ergonomics-related health would be using such a rag-tag, do-it-yourself, piece of shit. I realized that there must be a serious barrier to standing desk ownership.

Ergonomics - Standing Desk - 3

For me, the main barriers were size and cost. The standing desks available were really meant for an office environment, so they were big and ugly. Even the smallest and best-looking standing desk would have been awkward and out of place in my condo. The cost of the unit was somewhere between 1-3k, depending on the size, quality and package. Sure, these motorized desks could lift a Mitsubishi Eclipse, but they still wouldn’t hold my laptop up so that I didn’t have to turkey my neck forward to see it.

I started thinking about what I would need to have a solid, functional, good-looking standing desk in my condo. It would obviously need to be ergonomic; no cranked necks or awkward shoulders. It would need to be compact, because there is only so much space to work with; it would also need to be good looking, and fit into the aesthetic of the condo, instead of a cubicle.

So I made a few sketches and send them home to my parents. My mom, an industrial designer, thrives on new ideas and brainstorming, so we collectively kicked around some ideas. Later that month, my parents and sister surprised me with a prototype of the standing desk, when they came to visit in Ottawa. Apparently, they’d secretly created it, based on the sketches we’d been sending around. I lost my bananas. It was a functional, bona fide standing desk, but it definitely needed some tinkering. The original prototype evolved into the desk you see below.

Standing Desk - Gereghty - Living Room

For the past year, my family and I have been perfecting the design and manufacture of this desk. From the garage in Sudbury, Ontario, has emerged a compact, ergonomic, good-looking, wall-mounted standing desk. We’ve made several desks for friends and ourselves, and we’re in the process of making the first small batch to sell. The site is www.standingdesks.ca – have a look and let me know what you think.


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