Last year I purchased a new desk through work. This was a fancy standing desk; it could be raised and lowered as appropriate. I’ve had one in the past and quite enjoyed it. Due to my trip around Christmas, I had to have its delivery delayed. And even when it was delivered, I wasn’t ready for it. My apartment is small, so I had to figure out how to rearrange furniture to accommodate it. So for a couple of weeks, my front entryway was smaller as I had to navigate around the big boxes.
Last week I made a concerted effort to construct it. It was not easy.
I did a bunch of measuring of the new desk, the existing desk, and the space. I had some chairs that were just taking up space and could go into storage: that helped. But would the old desk have to go as well? The new desk has a smaller footprint, and I do a lot of stuff on my existing desk. I eventually decided that there was a way to have both desks; that was my ultimate goal because I want Catalina to have a desk for herself when she comes. In the meantime, I will have a work desk, and a personal desk.
First though, construction.
The instructions could have been better; they didn’t do a great job on differentiating the various screws that would be used. I figured it out only after using the wrong ones in the first step. I got past that hurdle, and things went well from there. And at the end I had a well constructed desk that was upside down.
The desk, because of all the motors, was very heavy. And the instructions said that you should have two people do the flipping. Also, don’t grab the desk part; grab the frame part. This was a problem, because I am one person, and I don’t have anyone I feel I could call to come over, break social distancing, and flip a desk.
I also didn’t want to strain my back too much. I need it for too many other things to risk injury.
I pondered for several hours, and eventually came up with a convoluted solution.
I have a very sturdy coffee table. It was built in 1957 in the Ozarks with very dense trees. It can handle a lot. I covered it with some of the packing material from the new desk. Then I lifted one end of the new desk onto it, and then pushed the other side so that it was eventually upside-down on the coffee table. That was stage one.
I then put towels over my old desk. I moved the coffee table/new desk contraption next to the old desk and somewhat repeated the process to get the new desk sitting on top of the old desk. Stage two completed.
From there, I slid it down, back on to the coffee table, but this time on its side. Stage three completed.
I suppose I could have repeated myself and got it back onto the old desk, but on its side. Instead, I took the shortcut, that was probably safer. I gently tipped it over so that its legs were on the floor and then stood it upright. That may have been a bit of a strain on the frame, but it seems to have worked. I now have two desks.
Things are mostly successful now. The separation of personal and work is helping me focus better when I am working. I have a bit less space though. And I still have a rogue filing cabinet that I have to figure out what to do with; the standing desk has a warning not to store anything tall under it, and that small filing cabinet counts as tall. But overall, I think I’m ahead of the game here.