The pyramid configuration just didn’t work for me. I wear progressive bifocals and I spent half the day with my head tilted back to look at the upper monitor and after just a few hours it was killing my neck. After ten to twelve hours of that a day I was a mess.
I had to try something different. At 52″ wide I knew I didn’t have enough room on my desktop for the iMac and the two monitors to sit in landscape mode, side by side. I really didn’t want to have to buy a bigger desk. I also realized I was going to need to move the floating shelf out of the way to the right.
I bought a dual monitor stand to mount the monitors on. I thought I was going to have to mount them both in portrait mode but fortunately there was just enough room to mount one in each mode.
After getting the two monitors set up I decided the iMac was now too low so I removed the under shelf I built and set it back on the desktop. Again, because of my bifocals I prefer that I look in a more downward direction at my monitors. So now my keyboard and mouse were too low for real comfort.
Years ago we bought a gaming table. It had inserts for chess, backgammon, parcheesi, and some other table top games. The tabletop was 1-3/4″ thick laminated pine. Unfortunately we kept it in the garage for way too long and it got seriously dried out. I cut it up thinking I was going to turn it into a new end grain butcher block cutting board but the wood was far too dry, it chipped and splintered badly. I would have had to fill way too many holes, there were too many gaps in the glue up.
It wouldn’t work for a cutting board but it would work as a platform for my mouse and keyboard. I’ve never cared for Mac peripherals. Their keyboards and mice are an abomination of form over function. I prefer my keyboards larger, more configurable, and on a greater incline. I absolutely love my Corsair mechanical keyboard and dread having to go from it to that chiclet keyboard and having to relearn how to copy/paste. Every time I switch between my other machines and this iMac drives me nuts.
Anyway, I decided to put together three pieces of the old tabletop I had glued up in a way that would work as a riser for iMac’s keyboard and mouse. I also added a strip of oak to increase the angle of the keyboard. It’s likely a little too highly pitched but I can plane it down if need be.
Note: This last effort to increase the incline of the keyboard did not work as well as envisioned. I’ve removed it and just added a couple of stick on feet to the back of the keyboard.
I’m actually liking having the middle monitor in portrait mode. I can see more lines of code at one time and I also have a browser window set to view my pages in mobile phone mode so I can more quickly check formatting. I’m liking it so far!