The Ultimate Desk for Productivity The Edge Desk comes fully assembled. With a few easy steps from stow to go, the desk sets up easily in under 30 seconds. The Edge combines a kneeling chair with an adjustable work surface to create a personal, focused work environment anywhere, anytime. The Edge folds down to just 6 inches high to save space when not in use. The Edge Desk is designed to be completely portable. The Desk for Focused Comfort The Edge Desk system is the absolute best desk for how we work today. Its sleek design allows you to break free from the rigors of traditional desk environments while encouraging better posture and comfort, enabling you to increase your focus and productivity. Designed for Your Comfort! The Edge Desk's height, angle and tilt are adjustable to suit individual body size and desk preferences. Perfect for any office worker or for any on-the-go entrepreneur! ORDER YOUR EDGE DESK NOW >> Winner of the Wayfair Kitchen Sink grand prize, it's clean, uncluttered white surface encourages focus and is designed to get you into work mode while increasing productivity.
When done, the Edge Desk folds down to 6 in (152 mm) for easy storage against walls, in closets, or under other furniture. Because it's so compact and weighs only 25 lb (11.3 kg), this desk can be carried with one hand and/or tucked away in a car trunk. Converts to artist easel for class, work in the park, or anywhere that sparks creativity. The easel can swivel between landscape and portrait. Order Your Foldable WorkstationShow All ItemsI'd wanted one of these for quite some time, but never enough to warrant actually buying one because they're ridiculously expensive; the cheapest one I could find anywhere was over $50. Looking at the general design and the materials used in making them, I finally decided to just throw something together to see how I liked it before buying the real deal.Ninety minutes after trekking to Walmart for the one item I had to purchase (more on that below), I had myself an ergonomic kneeling chair, albeit a very rudimentary one. I see this as a prototype though, so I'm okay with rough around the edges.
I definitely won't be buying one...but i will build another for certain.All of the wood used in this project was reclaimed from various sources. The boards for the seat and knee rest were from a bar stool template I'd made for work. We no longer use those stools so it had become obsolete. The 2x4's were once a sawhorse.The fabric is also reclaimed material; it was once a canvas style lounge chair. Don't judge the upholstery work, it was my first attempt ever and once cutting the pieces out there were none left large enough for a redo.It's not that pretty, but for less than $10 invested and less than two hours burned building it, I think it came out alright. I'll be closing with some thoughts on what I plan to change for the next version, (finishing the wood is at the top of that list). Despite the many changes needed and lack of aesthetics, it is surprisingly very comfortable.Step 1: What you'll needShow All ItemsSome wood obviously. As I said above, all of it is completely recycled material save the cushion foam.
That I got from Walmart at around $7 for four 18x18x1" pieces.The exact dimensions for everything comes down to preference and your personal physical characteristics. At six feet tall and just over 200lbs, I needed strong enough material to support me, hence the 2x4's which were generously donated by a now leg-less sawhorse (that pretty much makes it just a board now).The seat, knee rest and base can be made from numerous different sources. I had some 3/4" plywood scrap that worked out pretty well. You could use anything from shelves to old office chairs for these parts and I'd imagine most anyone actually considering building one has something laying around that would work.I used 3/4" and 3" screws, wood glue, spray adhesive and 6 L shaped brackets (4 corner brackets and 2 from an old curtain rod assembly I think) to tie it all together.As for tools, it could fairly easily be done using nothing but hand tools, but a miter saw, jig saw, belt sander and cordless drill came in real handy.
Good, strong clamps are an absolute must. I also used various marking and measuring devices (tape measure, angle locator, slide square, speed square). Finally you'll need a staple gun for the upholstering part.Our Guide to Ergonomic Kneeling Chairs Shape were the first company in the UK to start supplying the original balans kneeling chair, designed by Peter Opsvik, over 30 years ago - and it is still going string today! The benefits of the Variable Kneeling Chair, and other variations on the theme, are movement and an open hip angle. The curved runners on the Variable keep the spine balanced and the blood flowing to the places that need them most - the spinal discs. And the open hip angle maintains the natural curve of the spine in a way that no other chair can do (in our opinion). However, for sustained periods of sitting, it would be prudent to choose a chair that has some back support, for when the inevitable happens and your body gets tired. This is why Varier have developed the backrest for the Variable Kneeling Chair, and also, the Thatsit - a more robust, padded and adjustable variation built for long term sitting.
We hope that you find a solution in our range below, but please do contact us if you would like any further advice. page 1 of 1 What is the best chair for my back pain? Try Before You Buy Based in the beautiful Peak District town of Bakewell Click here for directions You have no items in your compare list.Very tall and very short people are used to feeling conspicuous. But there's a place where they would rather have a little more attention: the office chair. Most chairs are designed for the 5th to the 95th percentile of the population—people who are closer to average in size. That leaves roughly 4 million white-collar workers on the unlucky extremes of the bell curve—too small for their chair, with legs dangling, or too big for their chair, with knees bent up toward the chin. More Work & Family Mailbox Mostly, they suffer in silence. It is awkward to ask for a special chair—especially one that could cost hundreds of dollars. And many very tall or very short people are so used to "not being comfortable, ever," in standard-sized cars, airplanes and beds that they resign themselves to taking what they get, says Michael Kelly, a research fellow at office-furniture maker Herman Miller Inc.
Still, a growing number of well-fitting chairs are available for people at the extremes, and more employers are tuning in to their needs. If you're very tall or very short, ergonomists say, it helps to understand your particular pain points, and how to fine-tune your chair or ask for help. At 4 feet 81/2 inches tall, Ellen Frankel believes chairs are one source of her chronic neck and back pain. Experts say most chairs' backs and armrests give too little support for very short people. Perched forward on the seat, they can't lean on the back rest, and back muscles become fatigued and painful from supporting the torso. Circulation in their legs can suffer if their feet dangle. Ms. Frankel of Marblehead, Mass., a bereavement counselor, can't lean back in her chair because her legs would stick straight out in front of her, "almost like a kid," she says. "I would look very unprofessional," which might be "a little jarring" for patients, says Ms. Frankel, author of "Beyond Measure," a book about being short in stature.
She has tried using a footstool, she says, "but it's in the way, and it kind of makes your knees go up." She scoots forward and perches on the edge of her chair instead, crossing her knees and anchoring her body by pressing one toe against the floor. When working on her own or with colleagues, she tucks one leg under her or simply sits cross-legged. At 6-foot-5, Nicholas Detrych of Chicago, a project manager, says his legs get numb if he sits too long in a chair seat that is several inches too short to support his upper legs. Experts say very tall people also are at risk of pain in the buttocks, back, shoulders and neck from folding their bodies into a too-small chair. He tries to be diplomatic in seeking solutions. "You don't want to be the special-needs person," he says. To relieve the strain, he recently fashioned a standing desk by stacking two copy-paper boxes atop his desk and placing his laptop on top. "It isn't glamorous," Mr. Detrych says. When his legs wouldn't fit under a desk in an office setup he was offered on an assignment in another state, he asked to see any spare furniture and commandeered a better-fitting chair and table from a warehouse supply room, Mr. Detrych says.
The setup gave him room to get his legs underneath the table and hold his arms at a comfortable 90-degree angle. Solving the problem can be complicated for employers. Some worry about fostering resentment if they give one employee a special chair, says Tim Springer, president of Hero Inc., a Geneva, Ill., ergonomics research and consulting company. Also, changing the size of a chair often means the desk must be raised or lowered, too, he says. Manufacturers are offering more work tables that can be adjusted with an electric lift, a hand crank or movable pins in the legs. They are also making more work surfaces, keyboard supports and computer-monitor arms that can be moved on vertical rails, Dr. Springer says. Most facility managers are under heavy pressure to hold down costs, however, and providing special items for a few workers conflicts with a common strategy of buying many standard items at discounted prices. Special chairs can list for $1,000 or more—though employers buying in bulk may pay less than half of that.
Some employees resort to subterfuge. "If someone gets laid off or quits, they'll play chair mix-around" and snatch another person's chair that is a better fit, says Stephanie Fanger, a workplace strategist with Goodmans Interior Structures, a Phoenix office-furniture dealership. When Dave Rasmussen was given a chair too small for his 7-foot-3-inch frame, the Milwaukee information-technology specialist built a kneeling chair and shifted to it several times a day to ease back strain. "It helped straighten my spine out and stretched me out a bit," he says. He also has placed 4-by-4-inch blocks under his desk legs to elevate the surface. Many people stuck with one-size-fits-all furniture tinker with it. A short person might put a box or stool under her feet. A pillow or a rolled-up towel or blanket can provide lumbar support, says Don Chaffin, director emeritus of the University of Michigan Center for Ergonomics. Sitting on a foam pad or pillow can distribute the load on the buttocks. If a chair lacks armrests, he recommends moving close to a table or desk and placing the elbow and lower arms on a towel or foam pad for support.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, who is 4 foot 10 1/2 inches, once sawed off the legs of his office chair and desk to make them fit. He was working as an assistant solicitor general in the Justice Department in the 1970s, he says, and the General Services Administration refused his request to shorten his standard-sized wooden desk and chair. "I snuck in one weekend with my saw and did it myself, and sent the stubs to the GSA administrator," Dr. Reich says. His office chair later as Labor Secretary left his legs sticking out, so he held meetings standing up. Furniture designers have since embraced standards for chairs that can be adjusted by the user in numerous ways, including the armrests, height, seat depth and back tension. Dr. Reich's current employer, the University of California, Berkeley, has provided a BodyBilt model with "1,000 different knobs. You just twist and turn and eventually you get the perfect chair," says Dr. Reich, a professor of public policy there. The need for adjustable chairs is growing.
Steelcase Inc. recently studied the body shapes and postures of 2,000 workers in 11 countries and found that "extreme size is on the rise," says Ken Tameling, general manager of global seating. A new Steelcase chair, Gesture, is designed to fit a wider range of body types and sizes. It has a seat that moves farther forward and back, an armrest that adjusts over a wider range, and a seat back that supports a wider range of body sizes when tilting back. Gordon Peterson, who is 6 foot 6 and the chair's lead engineer, says the seat back prevents people his size and larger from flipping backward when they lean back. Herman Miller's Aeron chair comes in three sizes, serving the 1st to the 99th percentile of body sizes, says Gretchen Gscheidle, director of insight and exploration. "We priced all three chairs the same, so that the person who needs the largest or smallest chair isn't penalized," Ms. Gscheidle says. More employers are offering a choice. The city of Phoenix, keeps 10 different chair samples in a room for any of its 14,000 employees to try out, says Steve Georgoulis, the city's facility manager.