A minimalistic desk to handle cables and electronic clutter elegantly | Hacker News Reader

A minimalistic desk to handle cables and electronic clutter elegantly

elzr.com

294 pointselzr45 comments

Wow, this thing is beautiful. I love the cost to have it built: $190USD. I'm fairly certain it would cost me 3 times that to build it myself here in Michigan.

Is it solid wood or veneer? Also, anything you would do differently?

It's veneer, I guess. I'm not very familiar with carpentry vocabulary but here in Mexico they call the technique "tambor" (drum): sheets of cedar enclosing a simple skeleton of cheap wood. Solid wood would have been more expensive and too heavy (this one's heavy enough!).

Nothing yet that I would have done differently about this desk: it's barely my second day with it and I'm just happily overwhelmed by the response its getting from the interwebs.

That said, if I had to design a desk all over again, I would probably do a standing desk. That NYT article on sitting as a lethal activity was definitely the last straw for committing to a future with less sitting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17sitting-t.h...

The problem is that I haven't yet the slightest clue into how to make an elegant standing desk, all the designs I've seen are pretty terrible.

Thanks for your kind remark :)

i thought about getting a standing desk as well. what do you don't like on standing desks like the steelcase activa lift [1]? (other than the quite outrageous price ;)) what would you change?

[1]: http://www.steelcase.eu/en/products/category/desks-tables/sy...

For one thing, of course I would add a slot and back drawer, like my current desk ;) And I'm much more fond of wood than steel.

I'm guessing the sloping common in old standing desks [1] is a good idea. Legroom requirements are very different too and that would be interesting, I would probably continue the back drawer all the way to the front... keeping it open of course (I don't like lids or movable parts).

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:031030-F-2828D-166_screen....

I also think some sort of (metal?) foot bar would be a good idea. Perhaps even have two foot bars? One for resting a leg when you're standing, one higher and further back for when you're sitting on a high stool, as if to simulate a higher floor?

The main perplexity I've been wrestling with is how to have it be both standing and sitting without moving parts. Total pipe dream... or maybe that second rest bar is part of the answer?

It also seems like displays need to be somewhat higher than on a sitting desk. But it's hard to have several levels and still keep it elegant...

Anyway, I'm getting excited already! Perhaps I'll sell this desk and make another one before the end of the year. :)

Do you ship to the US? :)

Rain gutters also work great.

http://lifehacker.com/#!5299994/rain-gutters-as-cable-manage...

Oh... another pointlessly broken Lifehacker link. Thanks Gawker.

I see from your profile you're based in Canada - here in the UK, I've found it's the regional redirects that are breaking things (because the regional sites aren't on the new setup yet). Assuming the same thing is affecting Canadian users, if you delete either the "ca." from the hostname or the #! from the path string, the link should work.

It seemingly applies everywhere except the US. Even though I now know the workaround, I still refuse to read their articles out of spite at their incompetence. It's all I can do to stop myself spitting at the screen.

The link works for me in Australia but the sidebar is positioned over the content.

Thank you for explaining why this is happening! I couldn't understand why literally every single Gawker link doesn't work for me, on any computer... it seems unbelievable they haven't fixed this yet.

http://lifehacker.com/5299994/rain-gutters-as-cable-manageme... is a working link which seems to redirect properly.

That is a beautiful desk. I also found the link to the underdesk with the peg board to be ingenius. I currently use a glass top corner desk. The glass is pretty awesome because I can use it as a whiteboard :D. However, a smaller corner desk is kind of awful for the 3 monitors I work with.

One problem I see is if you had the desk up against the wall, it would be a huge pain to access everything to say remove drives or add new stuff. Though judging from the picture he doesn't keep it by the wall.

Fantastic design though! Too bad I'm sure it would cost a fortune more to have it done here in Cali :(

You should still try asking around, it's a very simple design requiring very straightforward workmanship and few, simple materials.

Thanks for your kind remarks! :)

The design might work against the wall if the drawer were open in front. Crawling under the desk you would see the clutter of the cords, routers, power strips, etc., but access would be easier, and you wouldn't see the drawer much otherwise.

A drawer that was open only toward the front might also look better in an office setup where the back of the desk faces the room.

I really like the look of the slot. My only concern would be small stuff (e.g. writing utensils) falling into it, but I suppose as long as it wasn't backed up against the wall it wouldn't be an issue.

You could install a brush seal. Some cable management solutions use them.

I think cleaning it would be a pain as well. Doesn't look very easy to clean out the slot/back.

The binder clip cable catcher ... so simple ... so perfect!

This looks fantastic! I may incorporate some ideas in my standing desk when I get it built later this year.

Please share pics when you do build it! I'm VERY interested in how you evolve the design for standing desks. :)

Have you considered adding something like recessed USB ports on the desk front for flash drives and other transient USB accessories? I always thought that would be pretty slick, but I haven't had a chance, and this desk, being custom designed seems like a great place to try it

After my desk is made, I intend to get a custom coffee table made and hope to put in a recessed outlet with usb plugs for easy charging of phones and laptops.

Could you please send me a pic or further description of what you mean? It sounds interesting and I'm trying to wrap my head around it but I guess I've simply never seen it.

I can't find a good picture, so here's the best I've located:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y167/voigts/CustomWoodCaseI...

Like that, except finished and/or polished.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the tip and the pic.

It sounds interesting though somewhat against the simplicity of the current desk. As I detail in another comment, it's not solid wood so it would be pretty easy to create the recessed outlet and a path through the tabletop...

Any chance you are planning on selling this commercially? I would definitely purchase. Awesome work.

I've upvoted the comment to express "agreement" -- but I am commenting because upvotes no longer show so no one would know that the comment was upvoted except mr_november.

TL; DR: Great idea!

Thanks for your interest. I would love to sell this commercially as a side project but the market is entirely on the US while I'm in Mexico. Cross-country shipping and customs is too much of a pain.

The story of my life: I should be in the States. Only now it comes with an interesting twist: If I lived in the States I would very likely sell plenty of these desks, yet if I didn't live in Mexico I would very likely never have built this ultra cheap proof of concept in the first place. :)

This is neat, is sort of reminds me of a desk I have hade my eye on:

http://www.bluelounge.com/products/studiodesk/

I'd really like to see one that is counter height so that I could sit or stand as desired.

Well done. My thought thought is to fashion a vanity panel for the back to obscure the cable or device clutter if you are going to keep the desk out on the open. Something like two panels to cover the back affixed by magnets. Maybe one in each corner.

Another possibility would be to make the shelf back on a hinge affixed to the underside of the desktop so that you could access the gear on the shelf from the front. if the desk was ever positioned against a wall it would be painful to access that back area to install new gear or retrieve the odd pen that fell into the table top slot.

A very cool design to be sure

All I can think of when I look at that desk is constantly losing things into the gap, pens being the main loss.

Maybe. Adding a simple shallow groove in front of the gap may be all that's needed to catch the roll-away items.

I've done something similar with a standing desk. I'll clean it up and post pictures soon.

I'm very curious, do you have an update?

Unfortunately this wouldn't work for an office where other people may be sitting on the other side of the desk for meetings.

As an engineer, I had to think really hard to imagine this world you describe where people have meetings around the other side of the desk. Luckily, I've seen offices in movies.

The back could be closed up assuming you're running everything out the large side holes.

you can get just the adjustable lift/legs parts from Geekdesk GDB1 the base-only is expensive, but not so expensive. My company is about to build about a dozen desks based on the Geekdesk legs and custom tops. but now that we see your desk, we may build a cable slot/box on the back that matches your design. Awesome.

I love it. A simple, elegant solution to a seemingly complex and frustrating issue.

Instead of changing your desk, get rid of your electronics. A phone and a laptop are all you (probably) need.

That's clever, but I wish you had chosen a nicer-looking veneer. For all that work, the result hilariously cheap- and cheesy-looking. Jennifer Newman's slot desk, by contrast, is gorgeous; love the firetruck red (although the grey is also lovely).

I hate Jennifer Newman's slot desk. It looks like she stole pieces off of $50 ikea desks.

I work with aluminium, you can do a lot of elegance with it and hers is just awful construction with no effort put in.

I was referring to the choice of surface, not the desk design itself.

Your characterization of this as cheap and cheesy-looking fills me with happiness at living in a world prosperous enough that even cheap furniture can be so decent-looking.

(Kudos to the OP, by the way. It really is a cool desk.)

Why downvote a perfectly reasonable, valid personal opinion and constructive critique? Only effusively positive aesthetic comments count?

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