Amazon.com Door Desk With a Twist | Hacker News Reader

Amazon.com Door Desk With a Twist

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21 pointsleftnode14 comments

That's a serviceable desk for $80, and I'm glad to hear of a company that spends money on important thing like programmers and not on expensive desks.

But, as a mechanical engineer, my instinctive reaction is similar to what most of you feel when you see an inefficient algorithm. My gut reaction is, "Metal brackets at the corners but no diagonal bracing?"

You could make a much stronger desk for the same amount of money by removing the angle brackets, using 2 x 3's instead of 2 x 4's, screwing the tops of the legs to the door directly, and screwing on some lengths of 1 x 2 strapping on the diagonals, thereby making a light, stiff structure.

All the same, as I said above, it's a serviceable desk; I'm just interested to see the generally positive reaction from software folks differ from my own instincts.

I've built a similar desk using the same door and a pair of sawhorses. The door bows a bit if you're like me and pile books on your desk. It also feels like it is going to give out if you lean on it. The surface is a wood veneer - not good for writing. You pretty much have to apply the whiteboard type surface to the desk in order to get a smooth writing surface.

I decided that the finished tabletops from IKEA were a better value: the surface is already good for writing and they have more internal reinforcement so they don't bow or feel as flimsy.

My favorite DIY desk was made out of a solid core door from the Door Store[1] in Cambridge, MA and a pair of filing cabinets. However, solid core door prices are much more expensive than hollow core[2].

[1]http://www.doorstorecambridge.com

[2]http://www.doorstorecambridge.com/Pricelist_Tops1.htm

I worked at Amazon before - the real door desks have diagonal bracing :) The big plus about them is that since they're so cheap, you can request one at the precise height you desire, which is great for people of abnormal body heights.

Why would you want a door without a doorknob hole? That's where the cables go through, dummy!

Furthermore, filing cabinets make for much sturdier support than untriangulated 2x4s.

Call it a waste of money, but I really enjoyed the height-adjustable desk I had at my last company. You'd turn a crank and could set the surface to any height. It probably cost a fortune, but was ergonomically awesome.

No crank, but you can (very easily) assemble this one at any height you want (e.g. mine is setup as a standing desk for a tall guy), and the price isn't far off from his door desk:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/00115992

Plus it includes shelves, a nice cable + power strip management (hiding) system, cute hanger things for the sides for a few bucks, optional $20 drawers. They offer a wider one also if you want.

This is known as destructive cost-cutting. I'd hate to work with a CEO who thinks it's better to spend hours building your own desk out of cheap materials than spend the extra $60 and have it built much more quickly, with no hassle.

What's next? "How I saved money by not buying a photocopier and copying everything by hand instead?"

I am using 2 cheap thick plastic tables (they're meant for inside sheds etc) from a local hardware store for $25 and $15 AUD respectively (one is longer than the other) and they sit in a very rough L shaped formation in one corner of my office.

It really doesn't bother me that they're foldaway equipment etc, it hold's stuff at a certain height, it's flat, it works.

I'd suggest I have twice the desk space as that door, for less than half the cost when you do currency conversions, and it took me literally about half an hour to get it all set up, which included the trip to and from the hardware store.

(they look roughly like this http://www.foldingchairs-foldingtables.com/Products/Folding_...)

People often overlook the obvious.

You spent too much money. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S79831622 is $34 and requires no tools to assemble it. I believe the legs come in different heights also. I have one with an unpainted top.

Whiteboard on desk top = brilliant. :-)

kinda useless unless you don't like to put anything on your desktop. And then you have to avoid the area where you put your arms while typing etc. I think you'd spend more time trying not to get ink on yourself than actually making use of that whiteboard :) Better to just use a notepad.

Even if you don't use it as a whiteboard, laminating the top of the door with the whiteboard probably makes it easier to clean.

Half of the argument for all this time and effort seems be around the fact that it costs $140 new. I also just got an ikea desk, except I just went on craigslist and waited two days for the exact item to come up and got it for 1/3 of the new price. The desk was right near by (Ikea is also far away from me), cheap, already built, no brainer. $140 isn't a good argument for a company especially when you (and a friend) spent the time planning, getting supplies, and building the desk. But if the job was to make a blog entry...

I'm ridiculously anal retentive about the quasi-ink-dust that comes off the whiteboard on my wall. I think my productivity would dramatically decline if I was faced with the same situation on the surface of my desk.

Neat idea though, for those who are less obsessive-compulsive.

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