Our desk is a cupboard: stacked monitors on 100 cm since 2020

Since 2020 our main desk has been a cupboard, 100 cm wide, 100 cm tall and about 50 cm deep once we had stripped it out. It has held one monitor, then two, and now holds three with a fourth beside it, and it only works because the screens go up rather than across. Two 34 inch ultrawides side by side need 163 cm. Stacked, they need 80.5 cm. Try the same space in the desk calculator and put a pair one above the other.

How a cupboard became the desk

We came from a house with room for a 180 cm desk to one with no room for a desk at all, and we needed two. The smallest room in the house became the office, and even that had no space for a desk. What it did have was a very small cupboard. We stripped it out and built the desk inside it.

It was 2020, and work had just moved home. The space inside measures about 100 cm across and 100 cm high, and we sit with our eyes 50 to 55 cm from the screens. That is the same 100 by 50 cm our calculator calls a compact desk, and the same 55 cm the calculator assumes for a desk that deep.

What has stood in it, and why each change happened

Widths are the body of each screen, with a 2 cm gap where two sit side by side. A stacked pair needs only the width of its wider screen.

One 27 inch. It started with a single 27 inch monitor, 61.4 cm of body on a 100 cm desk, and for that one screen the cupboard was roomy. It did not last: working from home, one screen was not enough for the working day.

Two 29 inch ultrawides, one above the other. Side by side they would have needed 140.9 cm, 41 cm more than the cupboard has, so the second one went on top: the lower screen on its own stand, the upper one on a wall mount fixed to the back of the cupboard. That pair served us for a long time.

A 4K screen for the console. A PlayStation 5 outputs 4K, and neither ultrawide was a 4K screen. A 32 inch 4K monitor became the main screen, at 137.7 pixels per inch, with one of the 29s stacked on top of it.

Growing sideways. A gaming PC and more screens followed, and the cupboard had no more width to give. We fixed a board to the left-hand side to make an L, which gave the desk a second face without making the cupboard any wider.

Two 34 inch ultrawides for trading. When we started trading we needed bigger screens than any before them, so the 29s made way for two 34 inch ultrawides at 3440 × 1440, stacked the same way as before: the lower one on its stand, the upper one on the wall mount.

Today: three screens and a swivel

The two 34s stand about 1 cm from one side of the cupboard, which leaves about 18 cm on the other. A 32 inch monitor turned to portrait stands angled into that gap, against the side wall; flat and square beside a 34 it would need 124.9 cm for the pair. At 1080p it is also the softest screen in the cupboard, 68.8 pixels per inch against the ultrawides' 109.8.

At 50 to 55 cm each 34 spans 71 to 77 degrees across, more than the 60 degrees the calculator allows for the eyes alone before the head joins in. Its model puts the head turn at about 6 degrees at 55 cm and 8 at 50, and that matches what we find: to read the far edges we turn our heads slightly, if at all.

The 32 inch 4K has moved to the L, against the wall of the extension. It is still connected to the PlayStation 5, and when we want to play at the desk we turn the chair to face it rather than moving a screen.

What the top screen costs you

This is the part of a stacked setup that deserves an honest answer. Our own method says the top of a screen should not sit above your eye level, because looking up at a screen all day is what necks complain about. The calculator marks a stacked pair down for breaking that rule, and the numbers show why. With its default seated eye height, 47 cm above the desk, your eye line runs through the gap between the two 34s. The lower screen's centre sits about 19 degrees below it, and the upper screen's about 19 degrees above at 55 cm, 21 at 50 cm. The top edge of the upper screen is 37 cm above your eyes. The steepest it has been in our cupboard was the 32 inch 4K with a 29 on top: the 32 is the taller screen, so the 29's centre sat about 23 degrees above the eye line at 55 cm.

In practice we agree with half of that. If you stare at the top screen for a long stretch, it is uncomfortable. We look at both, but the lower 34 carries the main work and the upper one the secondary content, and used that way it has never been a problem. Put the screen you stare at on the bottom.

If you are looking at a cupboard of your own

• Measure the height as well as the width. With the lower screen on a typical 10 cm stand and a 2 cm gap, a pair of 34s reaches about 84 cm. Our 100 cm leaves roughly 16 cm to spare.
• Stand the lower screen, mount the upper one. A wall mount on the back of the cupboard holds ours. Where there is no wall to fix to, a stacking arm does the same job: our old pair of 29s now sits on a 90 cm desk in another room, one above the other on a single arm.
• Use the corners. A portrait screen angled in against a side wall uses width that a flat screen could not.
• Grow sideways with a board, not a bigger cupboard. A screen on an L that you turn your chair to face costs you no width in front of you.