6 Simple DIY Monitor Stands You Can Build Yourself

A DIY monitor stand is the perfect puzzle piece to tie your desktop office aesthetic together. Not everyone pulls their screen out of the box and simply puts it on its default stand and gets on with their work. Certainly, many people do, but others are looking for a bit more. 

Suspending monitors in the air is a very popular trend these days, and creativity has brought with it the ability to achieve this in numerous ways. It's not too far removed from what people are doing with their TVs. 

Certainly, if you have a piece of furniture that can accommodate the TV on its stand, you can go ahead and use it. However, whether for aesthetic purposes or comfort, suspending TVs against walls is an incredibly popular trend. 

Office workers are finding newer, trendier, and more appealing ways to work daily, and this often includes what they choose to do with their monitors.  

You may find that because you like the DIY culture, you want to get a bit hands-on with whatever mechanism is at play here. That could mean you build a homemade monitor stand from scratch, or you buy something and set it up. 

DIY Monitor Stand Ideas

How to properly build a monitor stand? Let's find out! So, you may know that you are interested in a DIY computer stand but you may not necessarily know which way to go with your newly discovered passion. It's never a bad idea to look at some existing designs that others have either built or assembled. 

Certainly, these ideas don't have to form the full extent of whatever you do. They are all solid enough to be taken at face value and represent complete DIY monitor stand layout choices. Alternatively, you may use them as simply a base to fuel your creative direction. 

Who knows? Maybe this is a part of a whole DIY office setup for you. DIY standing desk ideas are also not as uncommon as you may think. You'd also be surprised to find out what is being used to create some of these. 

1. Wooden Arms

For someone choosing to forego the existing stand, this idea is nothing short of superb. Alternatively, you may have found yourself in a position where you only have the screen and cannot locate the stand. Who knows? It was probably discarded or never even shipped with the monitor by accident. 

In the latter case, circumstances may have made it clear that going through a returns process or attempting to have the vendor send you a replacement is out of the question. It's also entirely possible that you weren't too hot on the stand anyway, and you were always leading towards the side of homemade monitor stands. 

Arms are almost the perfect replacement for the traditional stand. When done well, they give a higher level of customization to monitor positioning. This is especially true if you want to change the orientation of your monitor from portrait to landscape. 

While most modern monitors that allow the rotation functionality can do so quite well at default stand height, others make it super awkward. 

With your wooden arms or DIY desk riser, you can raise the height of the screen, so switching to portrait orientation does not create any form of clearance issues for you. Depending on how advanced you are, you may either create a static stand or one with dynamic positioning.  

Again, if you go the dynamic route, your skill level may determine the kind of directional adjustment you can get. Maybe it's only vertical, or it could even be omnidirectional. 

Just because this is a DIY monitor stand-focused piece, it doesn't mean you necessarily have to build the whole thing from scratch yourself. What if you are not passionate about woodworking or you simply don't have the skill level? Does it mean you should forgo arms if you like them? 

Certainly not! So, feel free to bring in a professional to get the build completed for you. 

2. Wooden Riser

While desktop risers are not necessarily as functionally adept or as dynamic as arms, they are still incredibly popular and allow a slight modification to screen positioning. You may even find that many modern desk designs include a riser atop them. 

If you're not familiar with the concept, a DIY desk riser is essentially a small and often enclosed rectangular area that is built atop a desk. The idea is to put a monitor that is on the included stand atop it and to give your screen greater height that way. 

Some people who have risers bill them as completely inadequate when there are multiple screens at play. That's because even L-shaped desk designs often only include a single riser, meaning any other screens must be placed at normal height. 

Based on all this, there are two different ways that you could potentially include a DIY desk riser on your standing desk surface area setup. 

First, your desk probably has no risers prebuilt on top of it. In this case, you are going to have to build one for the first time. Depending on the number of screens you have and the tabletop surface area or working with, you may elect to build multiple risers. 

The second use case is for one of the previously discussed desks that only include a single riser. If you have multiple screens, then you are going to find this one wildly inconvenient. Therefore, you may take matters into your own hands to implement a couple more risers to complement the existing one. 

Regardless of the path you choose, remember that proper measurements are very important. While it is often removable when custom-built, a riser is typically intended to be a permanent tabletop fixture, so mistakes can be a bit tricky to come back from. 

Alternatively, though, you may want to go against the status quo and create easily removable desktop risers. It's all about what you are comfortable with and what you may want for your office space. 

3. Cardboard Stand

How do you feel about the idea of building a monitor stand out of cardboard? Certainly, quite a few DIY office ideas rely on cardboard as a base. You could purchase a standing desk organizer, for example, or depending on how creative you are, you could simply build one out of cardboard. 

A monitor stand is no different in this regard, but it does require a certain level of expertise. Remember that other materials such as wood and metal are naturally stronger and have greater weight capacity to work with. 

Cardboard, by comparison, is on the flimsier side and is often going to crumble under enough weight. Therefore, reinforcing or layering this kind of DIY monitor stand is often a very desirable course of action, since you don't want your screen to crush it and potentially end up being destroyed from fall damage. 

One of the attractive things about how easy cardboard is to manipulate is the sheer level of creativity that you can inject into the mix. For example, you could use cardboard to build a basic rectangular riser. 

However, you could also build an incredibly layered and visually attractive monitor stand. It doesn't even have to have a horizontal top. If you want a bit of tilt, who is supposed to be stopping you? 

Cardboard is very cheap and easily acquired, meaning the building block for the design presents no inconvenience to acquire.  

Note that even with proper layering being carried out, cardboard is not necessarily the most durable material in the world. That doesn't mean that your DIY monitor riser is not going to last you for a long time. What it means is there's going to come a time where you must replace it as the wear from the screens’ weight begin to compromise the integrity of the material. 

A visual and touch inspection ever so often can prevent catastrophic results. As you see things going the wrong way, you want to start working on another stand to easily replace the old one. Remember that cardboard is easy to get and easy to manipulate anyways, so this cycle should pose no challenge at all. 

4. Standing Desk Converter

Depending on where you stand, this entry may be cheating. However, it was said at the beginning that anything that you buy and may have to install is fair game in the DIY world. So, assuming the standing desk converter did not come with your table, then this falls right into that book. 

Typically, converters come into the mix when someone is not too keen on the height of a traditional office desk. Maybe you have been doing some research and have learned that you don't want to be sitting as much as you already are because of the level of unhealthy side effects that could occur. 

Many people in the same position go out and buy a standing desk to address their concerns. However, that's not always the feasible way to go about it. What if you don't have the budget to get yourself a new desk or what if you are not prepared to part ways with your current office desk because it’s still very much functional? 

In both cases, a standing desk converter is incredibly applicable. For those who may be unfamiliar, converters are tabletops placed atop a typical ergonomic standing desk giving you some extra height. They are either static or dynamic, allowing for height adjustment. 

Typically, they are high enough to be in a perfect position when you stand to get your work done. Because of the increased height, a standing desk converter technically counts as a riser by default. Be that as it may, many of them include risers and even dedicated peripheral areas for you to place your screen. 

The only downside is you often don't find standing desk converters that accommodate multiple screens very well, but there are exceptions out there if this is the DIY monitor stand idea that interests you the most. 

5. Paper Stack

This idea is quite literally as simple as it sounds. What you're doing here is getting one of the stacks of typing sheets that include 500 pages to use as a DIY monitor stand. Height adjustment here comes very intuitively, as you need only add or remove additional stacks of paper to raise or lower the monitor upon request. 

Depending on the brand you choose, this could be an incredibly cheap DIY monitor riser for you. Of course, you also want to choose a brand that uses a wrap that is attractive enough to not make your desktop look like a joke. 

Remember that while this idea can work, it is likely going to look very strange to anyone else who sees your desk. So, you need every advantage you can get in keeping things looking as normal as possible. 

Alternative Way: Monitor Arm

The idea of arms was briefly touched on earlier when looking at the wooden design, a good alternative for a DIY monitor stand. However, there is a better monitor alternative that you are going to find both more intuitive and more functional. 

This is the purchase and setting up of a quality prebuilt monitor arm setup. Two of the best options that fall under this category are the Pixio PS1D Dual Monitor Arm Mount and the Autonomous Monitor Arm. 

Both are built to support multiple monitors. Omnidirectional movement is key to proper dynamic positioning, and you are going to find that both these stellar options offer you the ability to get this kind of special adjustment style. 

Many people who have been using their traditional monitor stand for a long time feel as if they have met something revolutionary when they set up their monitor arms for the first time. There is also rotational functionality allowing you to match your screen orientation with no effort. 

Final Remarks

Certainly, it takes a desire and eye for creativity to lead you down the path of introducing a DIY computer stand to your office space. Be that as it may, doing so can feel both liberating and make your office work feel that much more comfortable. 

With the information above, you are now acutely aware of six potential options you could go for as you strike out to pull off this project on your own. Use them as either inspiration for a complete idea or as a part of something bigger.