
The true story of the Amazon door desk (2011) - PascLeRasc
https://glog.glennf.com/blog/2011/10/16/the_true_story_of_the_amazon_door-desk
======
RHSeeger
A couple points of correction

> The hollow-core doors wouldn't have supported the weight—they would have
> cracked in places under the strain.

Having used my own hollow core desks going back to 1985 or so (with an
original IBM PC sitting on such a desk)... I have yet to see a reasonable load
they would crack under. You run a 1x1 beam along the back and sides for
support, and they'll hold 2 computer cases and 2 CRT monitors (smaller ones,
but consider that LED monitors weight a LOT less than CRTs did) with no issue
whatsoever.

> moving a exterior door through an interior door frame with legs permanently
> attached is a tricky task

Having literally _just_ built a shop table out of a solid core door and 3/4"
plywood (for the bottom shelf) with 4x4 legs, this isn't an issue. You build
it so that the legs are bolted to the top (or, more specifically, 2x4s
attached to the top with L-brackets) and then take them off (a couple minutes
of work), move the desk, and them put them back on (a bit more than a couple
minutes, but still not bad).

I built my workbench in my garage and them moved it down to the basement shop
(because it doesn't have walls yet and the sawdust from cutting would have
made a mess), finishing the task just this past weekend.

Side note... if you follow a similar route, I recommend a 28" wide door. I
originally bought a 32" and had to cut it down after realizing it would be
uncomfortable reaching over it to the pegboard on the wall to retrieve items.

It cost me somewhere in the range of $400 to complete the workbench, I believe
(I'm not positive on that). If you add in the time to build it (if you have to
pay someone), it most certainly would have been cheaper to buy a desk (I agree
with him here).

~~~
linsomniac
I also came here to comment on the hollow core doors "breaking". Back in the
late '80s I made myself a hollow core door desk. I didn't use a 1x1 beam
either.

Hollow core doors are what is called "torsion box" design, and they are
stupidly strong for their weight. I used a hollow core door supported on one
end on a filing cabinet (which really was a bit high, even for me), and on the
other end by a cheap sawhorse I built using 2x4s and some metal brackets.

I can remember having at least two largish monitors (17" CRTs), and associated
computers on them, and they never seemed to have any problem carrying the
weight. Used them for probably a decade, before I switched to a more mobile
chic and disassembled the desk for scrap.

Similar: My grandfather, back in the early '80s, got a line on some scrap
hollow core doors with a nice birch veneer. He turned them into some great
2.5'x6' bookshelves, and I loved those things! The sides, shelves, and back
were still hollow core doors, so fairly thick. The would hold a full
complement of books, no problem. But I could carry both of them at once. I
could put a palm in the middle of the top shelf and lift one up with each
hand.

Don't underestimate the strength of a torsion box!

~~~
aidenn0
hollow core doors are not all equal; some are almost entirely hollow, while
others have several cross-members along their height (length when used as a
table). There are plenty that are just a frame plus a single cross-member at
handle height, and those will not hold any significant weight away from the
center when used as a desk.

~~~
kevin_thibedeau
They don't need any interior structure to be strong. That is the nature of a
stressed skin panel.

~~~
aidenn0
A stressed skin panel provides rigidity to the frame; the skin is not any more
puncture resistant.

------
zelly
That famous picture of Bezos with a spray-painted "Amazon.com" sign above his
desk was also a lie and for show. Bezos was very certain he would become a
billionaire and planned carefully to appear rags-to-riches. You have got to
admire that kind of long term planning and conviction. What a brilliant guy.

~~~
hello_newman
Is there a source for this claim? If so, I'd like to read it and learn more
about it

~~~
frogpelt
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuI-
ss5aQU8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuI-ss5aQU8)

Go to 7:47.

------
mh8h
I used to work as an SDE for Amazon at their Vancouver, BC office. The door
desk was the default desk you would get. And they were, as Amazonians call it,
the "frupid" option. There was a long wait time, and they were shipped from
Washington.

~~~
allthecybers
Then everyone requested an ergonomic height-adjustable desk and they had to
move those door desks somewhere. Very frupid indeed. I wonder how many
warehouses of door desks they have somewhere.

~~~
Scoundreller
Would be funny if Amazon of all companies would throw up their hands and jam
excess junk in a storage warehouse somewhere.

------
tlb
My last startup had about 10 desks built like this, a solid wood door with 4x4
legs attached with metal brackets. They were pretty good. The advantage of
this design over sawhorses is that you can sit anywhere without bumping your
legs. I put a monitor and keyboard in the middle, used the left side for
mechanical parts and right side for paperwork.

At the time (early 2000s) it was really hard to buy manufactured desks. Herman
Miller desks cost like $3000 and had a 6-8 week lead time. But you could build
a DIY desk for $200 in 90 minutes including the trip to Home Depot.

~~~
ineedasername
Why was it hard to buy desks? Herman Miller is top of the line, but even today
at any big box office supply store you can find ~5 ft desk for ~$150. And
there's always IKEA for even less.

~~~
ArtDev
At Ikea in Portland I spent $35 for the largest top and 4x$4 legs.

So just $51 for a nice looking dependable desk.

~~~
ericd
Hollow core doors are around $30 at HD, and probably larger than that top.

------
dang
Interesting discussion from 2012:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4210868](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4210868)

------
craigkilgo
Is the implication that the purpose of the door desk was to merely APPEAR
frugal? Or did it have some other original purpose entirely? I still didn't
quite get that part.

~~~
ineedasername
Yes, that's the implication, but it even if it was for appearances, It still
would have been much less expensive than anything considered "commercial"
grade, though you could always get something from IKEA or a spartan option
from a big box office supply store for around $100 to $150.

~~~
WWLink
I'd guess the door desks cost $100-150 to build, more if they had a dedicated
desk builder. XD

I have a hard time believing that'd be cheaper than having a stock of ikea
desks and having your new employees put them together on their first day.

Source: Someone that had to put an ikea desk together on his first day at his
internship. xD

Honestly that was not the worst place I worked at either.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I need a list of companies that use Ikea desks. Every place I've worked at has
those awful laminate desks with the metal back and beige metal filing
cabinets. I hate them so much. They give me wrist, back, and neck discomfort,
there's no room underneath for your feet, they don't feel good to use, they
look depressing, and no matter what I do say or what value I bring in, I can't
get a replacement since "no one else complains". If a place said I had to
build an Ikea desk or even bring my own, I'd consider that a huge huge perk.

------
itronitron
Attaching 4x4's, or any board, as the desk legs seems like overkill. The
correct way to do this is to just place the door on a pair of sawhorses.

~~~
gamegoblin
A 12ft 4x4 (enough for 4 desk legs) can be had from Home Depot for $12.75. It
might be structural overkill, but it's pretty cheap.

A simple sawhorse made out of 2x4s will probably need 20-30 linear feet of
wood, depending on the design, which will $7 - $10 per sawhorse, or $14-$20
total. Building the sawhorses also takes more time than installing 4x4 legs,
so labor cost is higher.

Of course, the 4x4 legs will likely need some brackets for strength against
horizontal forces (e.g. leaning against the desk), so the total price
including labor probably comes out as a wash.

------
WalterBright
I don't much care for the look & feel of plywood. My favorite workbench I
built out of ordinary lumber bolted together with carriage bolts, and the
surface is 1x8 unfinished pine planks screwed down. It feels good, looks good,
and has that nice pine smell.

~~~
rhinoceraptor
High grade plywood can look and feel nice. My desk is a height adjustable
base, with 3/4" baltic birch as the top. I put a chamfer on the top edge, and
drilled desk grommet holes, and then put a couple coats of lacquer on it.

------
akhilcacharya
Speaking only for myself, now everyone in my office has an adjustable height
standing desk. It's wonderful and way better than the standing options at the
prior companies I was at that you could only get if you had a documented
medical issue.

~~~
valbaca
During our team's recent move/restack, about 80% of our desks were replaced
with adjustable standing desks.

The door desk is dying.

~~~
arafa
Indeed. The word is that's the new policy and standard (adjustable height
desks for all).

------
toomanybeersies
There's really no point in making your own furniture these days unless you're
doing it as a hobby. Ikea and other flatpack furniture shops have made
furniture so insanely cheap.

MDF and plastic fittings have made furniture cheap and disposable, when it
used to be something that would last a lifetime (or several, I have furniture
from my grandparents). Now it's often easier to just throw your Ikea shit on
the side of the road when you move house than it is to take it with you.

I've built plenty of my own furniture in my time, it's something that I really
enjoy. But if I was trying to save time or money, I'd never bother.

~~~
whenchamenia
Disposable furniture is not worth the cost. Buying a 300 dollar chiar seems
dumb until you throw out 7 50 dollar chairs in the meantime. Not to mention
the environmental impact of this antique mindset.

------
jeffrallen
I sat at a door desk, arranged with 7 others into a pinwheel under a garden
umbrella at Tellme, and it was awesome. Of course that was a great team, and
the trains rushing by were fun too.

------
vonmoltke
I never really understood how these desks were "frugal". I looked into doing
something similar in early 2005 after hearing stories about these, but solid-
core doors were more expensive than the other options. I ended up buying two
two-drawer filing cabinets (because I needed storage space anyway), running
two 2x4s between them, and laying two 2'x4' sheets of MDF on top. All the
parts, including the filing cabinets, cost less than a solid-core door alone.

~~~
phd514
At least where I live, solid core slab doors are $40 at Home Depot. You could
almost certainly build a desk top from lumber that would be cheaper, but not
by a significant margin.

~~~
ineedasername
I just had to shop for doors, the only ~$40 doors I could find at home depot
were hollow core, like these:
[https://www.homedepot.com/p/Masonite-30-in-x-80-in-Primed-
Sm...](https://www.homedepot.com/p/Masonite-30-in-x-80-in-Primed-Smooth-Flush-
Hardboard-Hollow-Core-Composite-Interior-Door-Slab-with-Bore-56380/100013962)

~~~
phd514
I don't see them on Home Depot's website any more, but they weren't pre-
drilled, pre-hung, pre-primed, or mortised for hinges, none of which matter
for desk tops, but perhaps that's why they were that cheap. I thought about
replacing some of the hollow core doors in my house with them, but I don't
trust my ability to install anything more than pre-hung doors. I already had a
motorized standing desk, so I wasn't in the market for a cheap desk top,
either.

------
lbotos
The best "startup" desk that I've seen used often, and even brought to my home
office is using the Ikea melltorp dinner table as a desk:

[https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/melltorp-table-
white-s19011777/](https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/melltorp-table-
white-s19011777/)

It's sizable, metal framed with a tabletop (not 4 legs screwed into a top),
and $69.

~~~
PascLeRasc
I've been using a dinner table as my home desk for a while now, I really love
it [1]. It's the perfect height, the surface feels great, and it looks
beautiful. Best of all, it was free on trash night!

[1] [https://i.imgur.com/TSo7BK6.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/TSo7BK6.jpg)

------
astura
Jeff shows off his desk here:
[https://youtu.be/Q4f41fqxftU?t=75](https://youtu.be/Q4f41fqxftU?t=75)

~~~
alexis_fr
Thank you, was a great video. Comparisons of that time are cringy, especially
about the stock market, but he succeeded through the 2001 bubble and the 2008
crisis. His first house in Seattle shows he wasn’t afraid of cutting costs for
his lifestyle.

------
news_to_me
> before they split the warehouse (down south of the viaduct) and the offices
> (in the heroin district of Seattle near Pike Place Market) before I joined.

Ugh. Sorry, this is off-topic.

I wish people who characterize Seattle like this just left. Sure, maybe there
is a heroin epidemic and it's more visible in some areas than others, but
downtown Seattle and Pioneer Square (arguably more sketchy) are so much more
than the "heroin district". They're also beautiful and interesting
neighborhoods, full of wonderful people.

/rant

~~~
yourbandsucks
It's way off topic considering they were talking about 90s Seattle and you
don't seem to be. Anyways, it read like tongue-in-cheek humor to me.

------
greggman2
attaching legs to a door sounds like overkill. For many years I had a door on
top of 2 sawhorses. Easy to move. I used an indoor door so lighter than an
outdoor door. Had no issues. IIRC I put cloth over the sawhorses both because
the door sat better on cloth and because I could arrange the cloth to cover
the end of the sawhorse sticking out to avoid spliters.

