Oh boy, what a year it has been. Started from the bottom and stayed there since Covid didn’t allow me to travel or make any purchases locally for my setup. My new job began in April, and it only took me eight months to spend the budget allocated to me and get my setup together. I spent hours in calls with support or customs. And, I just might have seen every single monitor available in the market. Nightmare? yes. Awesome setup? Also yes.
Each part will have some advice, apart from the review on the setup selection. I am documenting this knowledge for myself three years down the line when I wonder what the things should I be looking for in the next build. You can use it to simplify your search and get the right items. With that done, let’s do it.
Let’s do basics first!
- The Chair – Your ideal butt-rester
- The Table – Your thought dumpster
- Other furniture – Whatever is cheap or lying around the house waiting to be repurposed
- Accessorising it all – basically more RGB!
The Chair: Featherlite Liberate HB
Thumb rule: Don’t cheap out. Try to go with the best butt-rester you can afford in your budget. Your butt needs the cushioning.
What you need to look out for?
Headrest?, Good lumbar support (I missed that I need it so bad now), breathable mesh back if you are in humid climates like me. Adjustable arms – super helpful. I like Featherlite, though they might be a bit expensive for some and the design concept is openly available in the local market if you want to search for it.
Good Things, A comfortable chair from Featherlite. Good build quality, great mesh quality. The chair can bend back all the way and still won’t tip over. Trust me, I have tried quite hard to fall, but there is just no way the chair would tip over, they are made not to. I say it’s a solid buy with three years of warranty.
Conclusion: A good buy that is avidly recommended by folks on RemoteIndian. Check it out on Amazon. Will go with Optima next, since it has lumbar support. Get lumbar support, really important!! That’s the only con with this functional piece of furniture was the lumbar support. For the price tag they come with, I just wish if Featherlite add it to these chairs as well. Moving on…
From writing this blog, Featherlite has added 3 more chairs under 10k. So do check that out too. I think it looks great.
Important Edit #1: Also, whatever you do. Don’t. For any reason. For any purpose. For anything. Buy. Green Soul chairs. Seen and heard enough stories (on folks at remoteindian) to take my mind off gaming chairs once and for all. Just get a comfortable chair that supports your back. You can live without having the word “gaming” in chairs atleast. I don’t want to discourage a business or venture by any means. Just good hearted advice against buying Green Soul.
Next up, the work station more like the junk station.
I went with a custom build for my work table and with a lot of research into carpentering. I like woodwork, and surprisingly there isn’t- a guide to buying tables anywhere. So, this “things to look out for” would be beneficial to first-time furniture buyers, I hope.
When you are inspecting a table anywhere, take up a seat from somewhere and sit down at the table. Be at rest and be comfortable. It should be all about comfort. Do the following,
- Put your feet on the footrest and check if your feet are comfortable. The footrest is a must; I ordered the custom build to have angled footrests as you can see. I like those more.
- Try to extend your legs and see if you can without moving your chair. Usually, when you want to stretch, make sure you have enough legroom to stretch. The table has an open back frame so I can extend my legs.
- See if you can extend your arms to the farthest corners of your table without getting up. That will tell you the biggest table size you can get. The table I have is 5 feet x 3.5 feet with plenty of space to work.
- When accepting delivery of your table, run your hand across every inch of the table. You can probably find some areas where carpenters didn’t do the finishing touches. I found a hole in the back of my drawer.
- Check all hinges, joints, drawer rails are in place. All edges are rounded. Try to lift the tabletop and see it doesn’t budge.
- Try to see if the table height is comfortable. Chairs these days usually are height adjustable, so this isn’t the biggest worry.
Another reason why I went with a custom build from local carpenters is supporting small businesses in this time of need. These folks have done far better work than any online mass manufacturers.
Vipul, what about a standing table?
I know right, a standing table would have been nice. I had a budget for it as well. But, I couldn’t bring myself to buy one + I don’t have Ikea around my place. Hence, I went with a very well researched custom build, and I think this will last me for some time. I like the space I have to spread stuff around; it’s modular and very well built. Though I thoroughly researched standing tables that you can buy as a consumer and not in bulk and these vendors making unique table solutions popped up.
More table suggestions –>
- This startup from BLR is doing some good work. Had a great interaction on the call. Check them out on JordyBlue, they make modular tables and have all kinds of attachments you can fit with the table.
- Featherlite makes standing desks, https://delhi.featherlitestore.com/product/height-adjustable-table/
- Along with https://smartmojodesk.com/
- I collect standing desk suggestions from everywhere so drop a link in the comments or tweet them to to me.
Optionally accessorizing your table, ideas for you.
A mobile stand is good to have, so I have an old one 3D-printed by a friend. “… or just buy a 3D printer” like every balenaista out there can tell you.
Usually, I keep my phone on vibrate mode at all times with it being in its stand in front of me at all time. I run Forest on it constantly so I don’t pick it up every 20 minutes or so.
You can buy a laptop stand depending on what you want to do with your secondary screen. I use it as a Spotify player or when I want to refer to some information without disturbing window orientation on the primary monitor screen.
The screen needs to be at the right eye level hence I started using the book I was currently reading as a stand and make sure to take it to bed to read one page a day. This helped me get back into my reading habit.
Get a plant. A succulent or cactus is great for your table.
Another thing you can buy and support local businesses around you. I wholeheartedly will recommend Baagbagicha from whom I got this little cactus. I bought the Groot planter from Amazon.
My fellow balenaista and friend, Catt had an idea one day if she could send messages to her loved ones’ everyday right from her desk and that idea became Inkyshot. And, now each member of the team has these little modern pagers that we use to fling messages around to our 100 people remote team. You can read more about it on the blog and the code for it is on GitHub.
Again, don’t cheap out on your extension board. Here’s the one I got, I think it’s pretty good. The clip system it has for plugging up things in the socket leads to no sparking as I hot swap raspberrypi power adapters 5 times a day.
All photos originally tweeted by Vipul Gupta is having cake 🐣 (@vipulgupta2048). Vipul’s 2020 no compromise minimalist remote setup blogs are a series. With more blogs, coming right up. Full list of items and more recommendations is available here on Notion.
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- Vipul’s no compromise minimalist remote setup: lessons in choosing your work furniture.
Thanks for reading, folks. Live in the mix!
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