Double deck Vika Amon as standing desk

For long, I was toying with the idea of building a standing computer desk at home, based on a spare Vika Amon table. The plan is as simple as just adding one more table top on the current table to form the new standing one.

And I did it.

With its existence, a standing table serves several purposes, listed below.

• Comfort and not. What I mean by that is, firstly, I spend majority of time sitting while I'm at my office, on weekdays. In the evening, while I'm home, I usually feel very slumped if I have to sit down to do most of anything. I’m not sure this is just me or it is a common thing, though. Either way, a standing table for PC would help if some computing tasks are to be done. 
• Secondly, during weekends, a sitting PC table is suddenly too comfortable. Too often, I find myself spending an awful lot amount of time mindlessly surfing the interweb. The standing table would make this bad habit not so comfortable, hence, I (or my wife) will spend leisure time more productively.
• Floor area: Standing tables don’t need chairs. As the results, two chairs we used with previous computer table - are no longer needed, saving some precious floor area in our living room.
• Desk space: My wife and I share the computer desk, and we have quite a few of devices: 1 ASUS laptop that uses a 23” Monitor for display and external mouse and keyboard, 1 HP laptop with external mouse, 1 HP Touchpad tablet, and 1 ASUS Transformer Pad TF101, 1 table lamp. Furthermore, we usually place our wallets and phones on the table. Clearly, cramping all those stuffs on a single surface of our old table makes it looks very cluttered, if not downright impossible. The new desk has double table surfaces which remedies much of the said issue.That’s enough of rationales for building one, not to mention the controversial health benefit.

Ergonomic of a standing desk is detailed in following picture. The most important point, though, is that the total height of the table is slightly lower than the elbow height of the person who would uses it the most.

1. Ergonomics for standing table. Source link

From there, based on my wife elbow height, the height of the legs between upper and lower table tops is estimated as about 22cm. It is important to take the thickness of the table top into account, in this calculation.

There are two viable candidates for these legs which are Sultan and Godmorgon legs. However, I find they are not quite economic. In addition, they look somewhat cold and industrial which is not a good fit for a living room furniture. Finally, I settled for using the legs of Frosta stool for their reasonable price and wooden look. The downside is we need to saw them off to desired length.

With all planning settled I went shopping, based on below Bill of Materials:

• 01 VIKA AMON table - SGD 39 - I already have this.
• 01 VIKA AMON table top - SGD 19.
• 01 FROSTA stool - SGD 11.9.
• 04 L-Shape hinges - that looks somewhat like this. Should be available at any hardware/DIY store for few bucks.
• 12 Small screws

Tools required: wood saw, screwdriver, pencil, and ruler.

Modification/Assembling Steps.

2. Saw the Frosta legs.

3. Screw legs onto upper table top. Use pre-drill holes for alignment.

4. Use of L-shape hinges to secure upper top.

5. Put upper top with legs on top of lower top, mark legs places on lower one.
Screw L-shape hinges at marked places.

6. Put upper top on lower top, again.
Screw to secure upper top position.

7. Full table without any stuff.

 8. Put table to its place and put stuffs on and done.