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Sunday, April 19th, 2020 06:44 am
desks in the time of coronavirus
My desk is here!
For context: Rolling Adjustable Laptop Desk
For convenience if you look at the picture, we'll have the desk parts be long side and short side since it'll be different if you're left or right handed.
About Assembly and Initial Use
I'm really not qualified for an ADA breakdown, but here are my observations on assembly and use that may be of assistance if you're considering a desk like this. Using the pic as reference: if you have any specific questions that i can clarify, feel free and I'll do my best to give you a clear answer.
Parts
Not many. This is maybe one of the few times the terrible directions really don't matter; it's pretty straightforward.
1.) Long side desk
2.) Short side desk
3.) Top desk rail attached to top center pole
4.) Base with two legs attached to bottom center pole
5.) Third leg
6.) Lips/Ridges for long side desk to prevent laptop-sliding
7.) Three wheels for base
8.) Four knobbed brackets to attach the top rail to the desks, two for each desk side
9.) Center bracket to attach top and bottom poles
10.) Screws/nuts
Tools
Do not for the love of God use the screwdriver it came with; it is slightly too small for the screw sizes and way too short for anyone over the age of eight; even my hands hurt using it.
1.) Phillips head screwdriver and the common size bit
I didn't see numbers but my first pick from my bits was the right one by eyeball-evaluation.
2.) Adjustable wrench, medium size - mostly for small nuts and the wheels
Screw Size and Assembly Overview
There are no microscopic, tiny, or very small screws; all are ones at minimum you can see when you drop very easily and even make a faint sound when they land in three easy to hold sizes. This is a ten to thirty minute job for the most part, YMMV.
1.) eight medium-large screws for the two desks, four on each side, to hold the desks to the top rail of the frame with knobbed brackets. The knobs will control the angle of the two desk parts.
2.) four medium/medium-large screws for the two lips on the long side of the desk, two for each.
3.) four very large screws and four small nuts to attach the third leg running parallel to the desk. Wrench wrench wrench wrench here so much.
4.) large knob (no screws) that joins the desk-side pole with the base pole with which you adjust the height
5.) three wheels which are also screws. They screw into the bottom; wrench wrench wrench wrench wrench
Use - Getting the Right Angle and Keeping It
The knobs that decide angle are great and easy to use, but they do need to be tightened fairly tight to hold at any angle. If you have grip issues or have large hands, this could be a problem. This isn't bad for me, I fit in a medium to large glove, but these knobs are a little small and I have strong fingers; this might be a dealbreaker for larger hands and also would be difficult if you have any differences in tendons or finger/hand muscles where gripping is more difficult or awkward. You could actually probably get around this fairly easily with a wrench, but it's a thought if you're looking for a desk.
The Good
It's going to save my back.
Fully assembled, it's very light, moves easily, and easily adjustable. I regret nothing.
The Okay, Less Than Good
I've seen better balanced see-saws while in motion when you start putting things on it and then consider moving it or moving those things off. It's somewhat short-side heavy. While emtpy, if you give it a hard shove or it hits a cord on the floor while moving, fifty-fifty it tips over toward the short.
When I put everything--laptop on long side, portable monitor on short--it seems fine but there's a definite sense of short side heaviness. If I remove the laptop, even with just the monitor and stand on the short side, it tips right over toward the short side aka floor. No, I caught everything nothing hit the floor, but I lost about ten minutes of my life.
The desks attach to the rail through the brackets, so I slid both the desk parts on the rail toward the long side, which helped (a lot), but this desk is top heavy even empty. Now,to me, this isn't a dealbreaker; on a rolling desk, it's much, much preferable to be light and easy to roll by design than heavy from the start. I can add weight to the bottom and I have several possibilities in mind, including some clamp-based storage.
The other problem isn't specific to this desk but everything in the world; once I notice something is slightly at the wrong angle--or I perceive it to be relative to the area or room--it bothers me until I can work out something to make it work. I can't tell you how much or how little unless it's very dramatic and obvious--I have no spatial sense and almost failed geometry in high school--but if it's off relative to anything, including me, I can't literally see it but my brain apparently can. And this desk has an incline toward the long side, but I can't be sure how much. It makes no difference in typing whatsoever.
Let me explain.
Angles And Me
You may not know this, but my entire apartment is slightly angled to the west, possibly from my bedroom on one side through the bathroom, Child's room, and livign room/kitchen to the porch and then the drop to the road, but very noticeably from the living room through the porch; it has the only real visual markers that I can see. This was not a surprise.
I knew it when I toured the third floor show apartment two floors above mine--though I couldn't quite see it without any visual references due to bareness--and instantly got slightly sea-sick and wondered if this was a good idea. When moved in to my actual apartment on the bottom floor, I could just see it, which assured no nausea, but I couldn't prove it and no one else seemed to see it. Not until we hung the TV up on the wall, where we were ruthless about balance and angle and eeeeveryone could see the slight downward tilt going west of my entire room (and kitchen), since the TV is ruthlessly straight. I also measured it for those who dared pretend it wasn't there so they noticed the slight but distinct difference in height between the top of the TV to ceiling on the left as opposed to on the right and also bottom of TV to floor on both sides. I can see it from anywhere, but most people need to be sitting TV center to have a long enough reference point and go "oh wow how do you stand it?" and I'm like "YOU NEVER NOTICED WHEN I TOLD YOU BEFORE SO DON'T EVEN SOULESS MONSTER". Something like that.
Now the angle doesn't bother me like it would if it were something in the room or if it was sloping wrongly or illogically aka when not toward a terminal point (a room sloping in the middle and then back up or sloping sideways toward another apartment) or to the wrong terminal point (sloping toward the outer wall of the building); back to front aka my bedroom to porch outside of which is the road at a slight decline is logical. And living inside an angle means there aren't that many reference points--but while yeah, the TV makes it more obvious, now that no one is telling me it's not real, its kind of cool, like a slightly sloped ceiling. People pay money for slopes like this, but probably not so much the floor.
(Cooking also shows it--eggs or saute/braise/fry when the oil pools to left left--but most people--foolish people--said it was the oven unbalanced which no. I could not get through to them if it was the oven, I would have focused on the oven being relatively wrong to the room and not the room itself; the oven was fine...relative to the room. You can really see it on the porch if I pour water but most people just glared so whatever.
With that context: the long side shows a decline toward the outer edge, noticeable by me relative to my knees beneath it and relative the bottom edge of the TV when I sit mid-room with the desk in front of me, and therefore the opposite the very slight decline of the floor so it's definitely not the room; every object in here but the TV has that decline so that never registers unless I can line it with the TV and I try not to. It becomes the bad side of noticeable with my laptop on it but that's very much me. It might be noticeable to anyone or no one at all; generally, when I have to check it relative to two objects (including me), it's not a problem for anyone else.
Having said that: so far, have attached the clamps for the power strip and the portable monitor stand. When I have it properly configured, will post pics.
For context: Rolling Adjustable Laptop Desk
For convenience if you look at the picture, we'll have the desk parts be long side and short side since it'll be different if you're left or right handed.
About Assembly and Initial Use
I'm really not qualified for an ADA breakdown, but here are my observations on assembly and use that may be of assistance if you're considering a desk like this. Using the pic as reference: if you have any specific questions that i can clarify, feel free and I'll do my best to give you a clear answer.
Parts
Not many. This is maybe one of the few times the terrible directions really don't matter; it's pretty straightforward.
1.) Long side desk
2.) Short side desk
3.) Top desk rail attached to top center pole
4.) Base with two legs attached to bottom center pole
5.) Third leg
6.) Lips/Ridges for long side desk to prevent laptop-sliding
7.) Three wheels for base
8.) Four knobbed brackets to attach the top rail to the desks, two for each desk side
9.) Center bracket to attach top and bottom poles
10.) Screws/nuts
Tools
Do not for the love of God use the screwdriver it came with; it is slightly too small for the screw sizes and way too short for anyone over the age of eight; even my hands hurt using it.
1.) Phillips head screwdriver and the common size bit
I didn't see numbers but my first pick from my bits was the right one by eyeball-evaluation.
2.) Adjustable wrench, medium size - mostly for small nuts and the wheels
Screw Size and Assembly Overview
There are no microscopic, tiny, or very small screws; all are ones at minimum you can see when you drop very easily and even make a faint sound when they land in three easy to hold sizes. This is a ten to thirty minute job for the most part, YMMV.
1.) eight medium-large screws for the two desks, four on each side, to hold the desks to the top rail of the frame with knobbed brackets. The knobs will control the angle of the two desk parts.
2.) four medium/medium-large screws for the two lips on the long side of the desk, two for each.
3.) four very large screws and four small nuts to attach the third leg running parallel to the desk. Wrench wrench wrench wrench here so much.
4.) large knob (no screws) that joins the desk-side pole with the base pole with which you adjust the height
5.) three wheels which are also screws. They screw into the bottom; wrench wrench wrench wrench wrench
Use - Getting the Right Angle and Keeping It
The knobs that decide angle are great and easy to use, but they do need to be tightened fairly tight to hold at any angle. If you have grip issues or have large hands, this could be a problem. This isn't bad for me, I fit in a medium to large glove, but these knobs are a little small and I have strong fingers; this might be a dealbreaker for larger hands and also would be difficult if you have any differences in tendons or finger/hand muscles where gripping is more difficult or awkward. You could actually probably get around this fairly easily with a wrench, but it's a thought if you're looking for a desk.
The Good
It's going to save my back.
Fully assembled, it's very light, moves easily, and easily adjustable. I regret nothing.
The Okay, Less Than Good
I've seen better balanced see-saws while in motion when you start putting things on it and then consider moving it or moving those things off. It's somewhat short-side heavy. While emtpy, if you give it a hard shove or it hits a cord on the floor while moving, fifty-fifty it tips over toward the short.
When I put everything--laptop on long side, portable monitor on short--it seems fine but there's a definite sense of short side heaviness. If I remove the laptop, even with just the monitor and stand on the short side, it tips right over toward the short side aka floor. No, I caught everything nothing hit the floor, but I lost about ten minutes of my life.
The desks attach to the rail through the brackets, so I slid both the desk parts on the rail toward the long side, which helped (a lot), but this desk is top heavy even empty. Now,to me, this isn't a dealbreaker; on a rolling desk, it's much, much preferable to be light and easy to roll by design than heavy from the start. I can add weight to the bottom and I have several possibilities in mind, including some clamp-based storage.
The other problem isn't specific to this desk but everything in the world; once I notice something is slightly at the wrong angle--or I perceive it to be relative to the area or room--it bothers me until I can work out something to make it work. I can't tell you how much or how little unless it's very dramatic and obvious--I have no spatial sense and almost failed geometry in high school--but if it's off relative to anything, including me, I can't literally see it but my brain apparently can. And this desk has an incline toward the long side, but I can't be sure how much. It makes no difference in typing whatsoever.
Let me explain.
Angles And Me
You may not know this, but my entire apartment is slightly angled to the west, possibly from my bedroom on one side through the bathroom, Child's room, and livign room/kitchen to the porch and then the drop to the road, but very noticeably from the living room through the porch; it has the only real visual markers that I can see. This was not a surprise.
I knew it when I toured the third floor show apartment two floors above mine--though I couldn't quite see it without any visual references due to bareness--and instantly got slightly sea-sick and wondered if this was a good idea. When moved in to my actual apartment on the bottom floor, I could just see it, which assured no nausea, but I couldn't prove it and no one else seemed to see it. Not until we hung the TV up on the wall, where we were ruthless about balance and angle and eeeeveryone could see the slight downward tilt going west of my entire room (and kitchen), since the TV is ruthlessly straight. I also measured it for those who dared pretend it wasn't there so they noticed the slight but distinct difference in height between the top of the TV to ceiling on the left as opposed to on the right and also bottom of TV to floor on both sides. I can see it from anywhere, but most people need to be sitting TV center to have a long enough reference point and go "oh wow how do you stand it?" and I'm like "YOU NEVER NOTICED WHEN I TOLD YOU BEFORE SO DON'T EVEN SOULESS MONSTER". Something like that.
Now the angle doesn't bother me like it would if it were something in the room or if it was sloping wrongly or illogically aka when not toward a terminal point (a room sloping in the middle and then back up or sloping sideways toward another apartment) or to the wrong terminal point (sloping toward the outer wall of the building); back to front aka my bedroom to porch outside of which is the road at a slight decline is logical. And living inside an angle means there aren't that many reference points--but while yeah, the TV makes it more obvious, now that no one is telling me it's not real, its kind of cool, like a slightly sloped ceiling. People pay money for slopes like this, but probably not so much the floor.
(Cooking also shows it--eggs or saute/braise/fry when the oil pools to left left--but most people--foolish people--said it was the oven unbalanced which no. I could not get through to them if it was the oven, I would have focused on the oven being relatively wrong to the room and not the room itself; the oven was fine...relative to the room. You can really see it on the porch if I pour water but most people just glared so whatever.
With that context: the long side shows a decline toward the outer edge, noticeable by me relative to my knees beneath it and relative the bottom edge of the TV when I sit mid-room with the desk in front of me, and therefore the opposite the very slight decline of the floor so it's definitely not the room; every object in here but the TV has that decline so that never registers unless I can line it with the TV and I try not to. It becomes the bad side of noticeable with my laptop on it but that's very much me. It might be noticeable to anyone or no one at all; generally, when I have to check it relative to two objects (including me), it's not a problem for anyone else.
Having said that: so far, have attached the clamps for the power strip and the portable monitor stand. When I have it properly configured, will post pics.
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