Working from home is great. Well, it’s great if you have space at home to work from. Sometimes I work from home. I live in a one-bed apartment, so do the maths on the space that I have. In a previous life, I worked in an office with standup desks and I loved them. That left me looking for a logical solution. How could I fit a standing desk into my tiny one-bed apartment? The solution, as it turns out, is called Deskmate.
What is Deskmate?
Well, as you might have guessed, Deskmate is a standup desk. The difference between this and a standing desk that you might get somewhere like Ikea is price and convenience.
I’ll keep with that Ikea example. If I had a dedicated home office, I wouldn’t hesitate for one second to pick up an Ikea stand up desk. They’re probably some of the best value ones on the market. But I don’t have that space. I needed a solution that could, ideally, fold away to nothing when I didn’t need it and be popped onto the dinner table when I needed a workspace.
Deskmate is a cardboard standup desk converter. That means you use this on top of a normal desk or, in my case, on top of the dinner table at home. This gives me a perfect workspace in my apartment, something I was missing badly.
Here’s my exact setup at home. Mandatory glass of beer to boot.
I was shocked at how good my Deskmate was and here’s why.
Benefits of Deskmate
There were plenty of positives with my standing desk alternative. Here’s are my favourite points.
It’s a Folding Standing Desk
As I mentioned, I’m beyond being tight one space. In my head, I envisioned a standing desk which I could fold away behind the couch or something. I do a lot of video work in the apartment too so that’s why I have a pop up green screen. Convenience is one of the most important things to me. I wanted the same from my standing desk.
Because the Deskmate is made from cardboard, it’s not only super-light but it’s also foldable. It’s actually not just foldable. It’s foldable down to a tiny depth of 3cm. That means I can fold it away and hide it behind the couch.
It’s The Perfect Size
It’s all well and good being tiny when folded away, but I need the desk to be pretty spacious when I’m using it. If you’ve got a pretty tidy keyboard, there’s nothing to worry about here. If I was to place a bet, I would imagine all product testing of the Deskmate has been done with Apple products. I use an Apple laptop, a 15-inch Macbook Pro with an Apple Magic Keyboard and Logitech MX Master mouse. I’ve got plenty of space, largely because the Apple keyboard is tiny. Some larger keyboards might struggle but if this is your setup you’re laughing.
If you’re using a bigger keyboard, drop me a line in the comments below and I’ll try give you an idea of what to expect. Here’s another setup I tested with a keyboard which has a Numpad. This doesn’t work as it means there’s no space for your mouse. Unless you’re a hardcore, keys-only coder.
Improved Posture and Productivity. And It’s Cheap.
I’ve always felt super productive at a standing desk. I’ve no idea what it is but it feels great. Maybe this is silly, but I’ve even felt myself working up a bit of a sweat just from standing while I work. And that brings me onto an important point. The Deskmate is great because you can use it with your normal desk which, of course, means you can just revert to sitting down. Standing all the time isn’t a great idea either so Deskmate gives you a handy alternative. Unless you have a massive monitor or big Mac which probably shouldn’t be moved that much.
Most importantly for your wallet, the Deskmate is a really cheap alternative to fixed desks and electronic tabletop standing desk converters. If you want to dip your toe into the world of standing while you work, you can buy the Deskmate for just £29.90. At the time of writing that works out as €35.
