I put an ad on Craigslist and found a super carpenter named Jason Gonzalez, who 'got' what I wanted right away and seems super knowledgable and very nice.  We met this morning at a local Home Depot and picked out the materials.   The materials cost $270 and I'm paying him $250 to build it.  

I could have paid a lot less for the materials but I wanted the desk to look nice so I splurged a bit.  I would say if you didn't splurge you could easily build a desk for about $50 for the materials.

Here is a list of the materials we got:  

2 - ...<< MORE >>

Since I'm having to build my own treadmill desk, I decided to build it to suit my needs.  There are a couple of considerations:

1.  The treadmill - I bought the treadmill from TreadDesk.com for $695.   I could have used the treadmill I already had but it has arms and a huge display panel.   I couldn't put a desk around the treadmill and comfortably use the keyboard.  Plus, the large display panel forced the monitor too far away.  The one from Tread Desk doesn't have any arms and has a small control panel that sits on your desk.  If you want to see pictures of ...<< MORE >>

There are hundreds of desks for sale out there so you would think it would be pretty easy to buy a desk to use as a treadmill desk, wouldn't you?  Well, after days and days of looking for a treadmill desk, I'm here to tell you that is not the case.

Most desks are too short.  Even the taller drafting tables and craft tables won't work unless you're really short or you want to hunch waaaaay over. 

There are a couple of places that you can buy desks that are adjustable, however all the ones I saw were either ...<< MORE >>

When I told some friends and family I was getting a treadmill desk, most of them had no clue what one was.  Some thought I would be sitting down and moving my feet on the treadmill.   Nope. 

A treadmill desk is simply a desk where instead of sitting you walk very slowly on a treadmill.  Since you are walking slowly - about 1 mile per hour, you can do everything you can do sitting - like type on a keyboard and talk on the phone.

You don't get sweaty or out of breath because you're walking so slowly.  Have you ever walked ...<< MORE >>

Okay, I'm ready and eager to set up my own treadmill desk.  That's where the first snag comes into the picture - I have a treadmill with sloped arms and absolutely no handyman skills.  I can watch someone hammer in a nail but that's about the extent of my carpentry skills.

Refusing to be deterred I spend a whole evening trying to figure out a way to set my keyboard and monitor on the treadmill in a way that won't cause the monitor to fall and shatter into a bunch of teeny-tiny little pieces.  I prop boards up every which way and move bookcases for makeshift monitor stands and ...<< MORE >>

I've gained about 25 pounds over the last few years - the result of too many hours at my desk (I work from home and spend 12-16 hours a day at the computer) and too little exercise so when I saw this story on 20/20 about treadmill desks I was totally psyched and wanted one immediately. 

The idea of walking 5-8 miles a day without having to spend time separately exercising was really appealing.  Although I had a treadmill it was gathering dust so I thought it would be really great to be able to combine exercising with work.  Usually when I'm done working ...<< MORE >>