I used to have a pretty normal desktop setup, the one thing that was the constant catalyst which finally pushed me over the edge to "fix stuff" was my uncomfy series of chairs (read: all of them, any chair under 500$ I've ever tried, for extended periods of seating is absolutely not something I am capable of effortlessly maintaining concentration during).

At first I thought, it's been over ten years you've been at this game clearly you're going to be at it for a long time more, why don't you just spring for a very expensive chair and get it over and done with? Well, I wasn't entirely certain that an Aeron or Leap or Freedom would actually fix my issues. Sure, people talk about them, but I wanted to know for sure that it would be the end of my problems once I had gone and fixed everything up, and the only way I could know that would be to actually buy one. Seemed like too much of a gamble so I skipped that.

It seemed strange to me that all these chairs at the high end were more than I'd spend on a new midrange system altogether, so I started to think about the entire problem rather than just the chair aspect and came to the conclusion that a nice recliner is probably about the most comfortable chair I've ever had, so why not work a system around that? I ran into several examples in the DIY sphere of people doing exactly this and being rave review happy with the results, as well as examples of high end full solution workstation setups like the Zero-Gee one and a few others based around the same idea that I based my initial plans on.

Interestingly enough, a good recliner will run you less than half the cost of an aeron, but seeing as I just wanted to prototype a setup I thought well what can I use that I have just lying around the house to make it happen? I had a broken chair (high backed / gas lift / 5 roller castors setup) and an old flat bottomed entertainment unit, so I ripped apart the chair and took the gas lift part of it and drilled and bolted it to the bottom of the flat bottomed entertainment unit, this resulted in kind of a mobile trolley with enough desk space for my display items (24" widescreen, 15" acer aspire 5630 notebook, 17" 4:3 1280x1024 for the mini) with stowage space underneath the main desk for all the necessary driving hardware (mac mini + powerboards + cables + USB 3.5 SATA docking stations, speakers).

Having the entire setup on an easily movable / swivelling caddy means that it actually ended up serving as an entertainment unit for the household too, XBMC + 1080p 24" = happy housemates when it's time to kickback and relax, I just swivel the caddy 180 degrees and then it faces 2 large sofas in the living room. Or I can move the caddy in front of a larger couch for collaborative sessions with clients and colleagues. Synergy links all the systems together, the mortals can use OS X on the mini and I have my heavily customised multi workspace ubuntu compiz system on the laptop, and I can take over their session w / synergy.

When working solo I face the caddy toward my single seat comfy old sofa and pull it in and equation complete, extremely comfortable working environment, enormously productive and adaptable, all in all extremely happy with it, and I'll be even happier when I invest a little more for an ergonomic recliner which will just be a dropin replacement for my current sofa. That said, this current one is so many more times comfortable than my old office chair + desk setup that I'm in absolutely no rush to do so.

Other potential ideas for upgrading are perhaps a kinesis evolution split keyboard setup mounted on the seat arms instead of the current lap mounted keyboard + right arm mounted mousepad setup, frictionless matting for the frequent different positions of the caddy, and an intuos to replace my sketchpad habit.