Given the recent studies suggesting that sitting too much is terrible for your health, I decided to put an old pulpit to use. I usually use this as a dictionary stand (a tradition carried on from my youth, where we always had a big dictionary on a beautiful wooden music stand in the den, to which my parents would regularly send us when we asked what something meant. “Look it up,” they would say, and we would trot obediently to the dictionary and do just that) but I have pressed it into service as a standing desk.
My lower back feels better already. I have decided to use this for all my computer use except when I’m writing a longer piece such as a sermon.
Great idea! I had been eye-ing stand-up desks for some time (occasionally converting my dresser into such a desk, although that requires tediously moving everything off my dresser to my bed and then back again later), but using an old pulpit seems so much more appropriate, artistic, and affordable! Now I know what to hunt for 🙂
PS. Where did you get your old pulpit?
[What’s funny is that I think I picked it up at a yard sale for like $3 back when I was a high school teacher. – PB]
Thanks, PB! Keep us updated on how this works for you long-term!
Yes, I like to use my computer at the kitchen counter to avoid sitting at it all day!
interesting. I have a computer with a monitor that swivels enough that i can stand and use it and i find myself often doing that for some work, rather than sitting. I might look into something like this for my laptop however.
I must’ve read those same scary healthcare articles. Recently I turned a plastic milk crate sideways and it’s perfect on top of my desk, though it is an eyesore.
Love the idea of the pulpit; will be on the lookout!
Thank you, PB! I think the exercise ball mentioned in the link instead of a chair is a great idea I’ll look into as well as the habit of standing more. Gives new meaning to “Standing on the Promises!”
If anybody says “Standing on the side of love” right now, I will hit them.
And I will hold them down so you can get in a good punch, Gidge.
I love the exercise ball idea but my desk is too high.
I have an exercise ball chair- google ball chair. It’s a base that raises the ball just high enough to be a chair. But I love the pulpit idea too, and shall now immediately message my boss and ask if I can have the pulpit from church. 🙂
I have a standing desk in my house although not as nice as PB’s. It is very helpful it isn’t good to be sitting all day at the more conventional sort of desk.
I have one, they are very useful.
Great way to put an old pulpit to use! It occurs to me that I could actually stand at my actual pulpit and work on my sermons, or email…but only during the most temperate times, when the sanctuary climate is right.
My desk is standard sitting height, so I modified it to be standing height by putting the monitor on a pile of old textbooks, the mouse and pad on several more books, and the keyboard on reams of legal size copy paper. Works like a charm and cost almost nothing.