Home Office Slat Wall With Motorised Tripple Monitor Lift and Desk With Independent Height Adjustment

I'm a graphic designer and I make living out of it. I recently upgraded from triple Full HD to triple QHD monitors and came across issue when I needed to adjust height of my setup differently than the height of my motorised table. By sitting on an office chair for 60 hours a week during last 20 years I developed a really bad back pain. Some time ago I bought a motorised rising table so I could stand for some time during the day. I had my monitors placed directly on the table but they wobbled a lot every time I touched the risen table and made me seasick. So I came up with an idea to put monitors on the wall and separate them from the table but real challenge was that I needed to change the height of my monitors as well. Unfortunately there were no such pre-made product that would solve that for me. Since I like Scandinavian design, slat wall and don't mind a DIY stuff I started to put it all together in sketchup to decide whether it's possible to make it real. This guide is not exact but should give you a basic idea how I made it and what I've been through before I got to the finish line. Maybe you can learn such possibilities of using linear actuator and rails to move your monitors up and down or make just a slat wall similar to mine. Have fun

I included mostly Amazon links for supplies but bought them on multiple places so products may vary. I bet you can figure out what to buy according to your needs :-)

Parts list - Slat wall

1. OSB sheets, 2500x625x15 mm
2. Pine Slats 25x30x2450 mm
3. Pine Slats for framing 40x50 mm
4. Wood screws 3x45 mm
5. D4 Wood Glue
6. Orbital sander
7. Dark walnut color stain or paint (for wood)
8. Anthracite synthetic color paint (for OSBs)
9. Rollers, brushes, masking tape, covers

Parts list - Monitor mount and wiring

1. VEVOR 600mm Stroke Linear Actuator 12V Heavy Duty 440lbs/2000N
2. VEVOR Linear Rail Slide SBR16-800mm 2 PCS and 4 PCS SBR16UU Slide Blocks
3. 12V motor remote controller
4. Monitor wall mount, Swivel type, VESA 100x100 mm (75x75 mm)
5. Optional - Reverse polarity switch
6. 2x micro switches
7. 12V power supply, at least 5A
8. Cable ties

Optional

1. Wall mount lights
2. Electrical Sockets

Tools I've used

1. Makita Router RT0701C
2. Makita Planer 2012NB
3. DeWALT Drill DCD791
4. DeWALT Impact Driver DCF887
5. DeWALT DCS572 circular saw
6. HiKOKI / Hitachi C10RJWAZ circular saw
7. Metabo KGS 216M Mitre Saw
8. DeWALT Rafter square
9. Steel rulers 1000 mm and 300 mm
10. Tracer Pencil (it's awesome :-))

This step all depends on your use case because it will sure differ from mine. I'll stick to measurements that suited my room and my needs and it's only up to you how you're going to play your game from this point on.

After a lot of planning I've started to take measurements and put them directly in SketchUp.

1. I made a blank file and drew a whole room
2. Cavity between walls will be determined by thickness of bigger slats (50 mm in my case). I layed them out evenly and rearranged later because of monitor mounts. OSB with slats will be mounted to these bigger slats later on.
3. Then I layed out all object (table, IKEA drawers, computer, monitors ...) with exact dimension so I know that everything will fit. IKEA models are pretty easy to find on 3D warehouse and can be directly imported to your project. If you can't find it, just draw a simple shape of your object using the biggest dimensions it has. It won't look as good in preview, but at least you'll have placeholder.
4. Trickiest part was to measure maximum and minimum heights for table and monitors. Best practice for me was to mock it all up and try if it suits me. I recommend you to do the same. Hands on desk should be in 90°-100° for standing and sitting position. Ideal monitor height is in the center (or slightly below center) of the monitor when you're looking straight forward in relaxed position
5. Desk height in my case 72 cm sitting / 103 cm standing
6. Monitor height in my case 117 cm sitting / 163 cm standing. This will determine hole size through OSB for monitor assembly, sliding rail lenght and linear actuator stroke length needed.
7. I'm using center of my monitors as a reference point for measurements. This may vary if your VESA mount has different placement, but in most cases it is centered.
8. Calculate OSB width to fit across whole room. My room is 343 cm wide, so I needed 7 sheets approx. 50 cm wide.
9. Determine slat width and spacing accoring to your OSBs.
10. Plan holes for monitor mount and cables (power, HDMI, USB, webcam ...)
11. Since I hate to have electrical sockets and extenders hanging everywhere, my priority #1 was to hide all cables in cavity behind slat wall to make it look super clean. Monitors and lift will have separate sockets hidden behind the wall, we will get to that later.
12. Don't forget to plan service access to your cables if you're ever need to upgade. I've made mine by splitting one of the OSBs in half which is just enough to acces cables and route them through cavity between monitors and computer.

Some advice for planning ...

1. Take your time and be thorough
2. Be precise in measurement ... and measure twice ...
3. Use any design tool you to speed up whole process and get better idea of a final product (ShetchUp, CAD, figma, Adobe Illustrator) or just draw it in a paper.
4. Think ahead and mock up more layouts, even those you may think are crazy or difficult to make at firts. You may like them later so keeping different versions at mind.
5. Give it a day or two and re-validate your ideas. Don't rush it.
6. Don't hesitate to make changes on the fly even if it will take more time.
7. When in doubt, don't hesitate to ask your friends or family for advice.

Framing

In my room I could spare 5cm for cavity and another 5cm for slat wall. Altogether it took nearly 10cm of my room, but I'm OK with that.

As spacers I used pine slats 40x50mm, that are generally used for roofing in Europe. I placed them all around the wall and two in the middle, separating the wall to uneven thirds.

1. Measure and drill holes for screws in wood. 10 cm from each end and then approx. every 30 cm should be enough.
2. Mark them through on to the wall.
3. Drill holes in wall and put plugs in. Type of plugs depends on type of wall you have. If you have a drywall with wooden framing, you can go in directly without any plugs
4. Mount framing on the wall with screws. Mine was 100 mm long
5. To add strength, if needed, you can use polyurethane construction foam across each slat
6. Add a 3-5mm thick foam tape on contact points with OSB as an expansion gap. It'll also prevent any squeaking.
7. Use a flat wood drill bit to drill at least 20mm holes to route cables like HDMI. These holes should be made according to your needs.

Slat Wall

My slats are a bit wider than the gap so I decided to go for 20 mm gap, 25mm slat width, 30mm slat depth. You can do it your way, but the rule of thumb is to make them fit on one OSB board, starting with slat on one side, and finishing with gap on the other side. This is different for first and last OSB if you plan to drill them along the side. I did it anyway although I think it wasn't necessary.

I wanted to put sockets directly into the wall if I ever need them for devices like switch, router, laptop, another computer and so on. I figured out that 4 sockets on each side would be enough. Placement and number of the sockets depends on your needs and socket size, but you can see my results on the pictures as an example.

1. Preparing slats
2. I had some nasty 1" pine wood planks laying around so I've cut them on circular saw to 35mm wide slats and planed them down later to the exact size.
3. I needed approx. 80 slats, but made 90 because if you have spare, you can replace the ones that don't look good.
4. Once cut, I've planed them down to 25x30mm. Then I've picked two slats I didn't like and planed them down to be a 20x20x150mm spacers so I could clamp all together before attaching them to the OSB board.
5. After planing I've decided to round corners of front side of the slats to make it smoother to touch. For this I used small Makita router with 3mm round corner bit.
6. After planing and routing I've sanded down every slat by hand with 80 grit sand paper allowing woodstain to soak up evenly
7. Then I did cut each end of every slat to exact dimension according to my drawing. Also kept in mind the shorter slats for 2 OSBs with sockets.
8. This tedious process took me a week during evenings/nights after work.

1. Preparing OSB
2. My OSB sheets were 2500x625mm do I used a circular saw to make them smaller according to my SketchUp drawing.
3. Everything was sanded down to get rid of the splinters and sharp edges
4. Final OSB height should be smaller than room by 5-10mm, but it depends how much is the room square.
5. On two OSBs I measured 30 cm from the bottom of the board as the horizontal center of electrical sockets. I left a 2cm gap around them which seemed adequate. Best practice is to mock it all up before attaching slats. Decision was made so I drilled out a 4 circular holes on both boards.
6. One of the boards had to have two long openings for sliding mechanism. Everything according to measurements from previous steps. I wanted to fit everything between slats to hide it in a gap between slats as much as possible.
7. I've numbered every single board from rear side, so I won't mix them up later.

1. Painting
2. For slats I've used walnut color woodstaind. It was pretty exhausting and took a whole day of my life. It was worth it though.
3. Painting OSBs with a small roller was a lot faster than I initially thought. I used synthetic color that is used to paint untreated metal so it sticks to everything, won't peel and covers in one layer. It's very good looking dark grey (anthracite) color with metallic bits and it adds more depth to final result. You can use any color you want, but use synthetic because OSB contains a lot of resin.
4. Painting everything and letting it dry took 4 evenings and one whole day. Phew.

1. Putting it all together
2. Figuring out how to clamp everything together to keep it tidy and then rotate the board to attach slats was the trickiest part of the whole process. After few tries i figured out that. I positioned everything facing front towards me, placed spacers in gaps and clamped everything together with 3 spare slats across all slats. This was enough to keep it in place so I then could rotate it easily and pre-drill holes and sink screws in.
3. First board took me the longest, but others were done under half an hour each.
4. After finishing first board I've made markings on my steel ruler so I didn't need to measure everything over again.
5. Distance between screws was 40 cm. Since I didn't want to use any glue I did use my small nail gun to shoot a two thin 40mm long nails between every screw. This should prevent warping
6. This step was done during two evenings because at this point I was so hyped-up to get to the finish line.

Some metal parts had to be custom made, but I have a friend that works as welder so he helped me out. I've bought mechanical parts from Chineese company Vevor because they have decent quality products for low price.

1. After re-measuring everything I gave a call to local metal shop and asked them if they cound prepare me parts made of 2mm steel according to my blueprint. They agreed and told me I could come to pick it up in just 2 hours. Great to hear that!
2. Now I get a little bit ahead, but will explain everything - I came home, drilled everything, welded everything, assembled it and ... I was disappointed in terms of strength. It was flexing when holding a side monitors. It may be allright, but wanted to make it really sturdy. It was working fine, but 2mm steel just wasn't enough (You can see this prototype in attached video.). So back to the drawing board.
3. Since it was just 10USD loss for material I didn't cry much that day :-) I realised that it actually serves me as a great template that I could use to make enhancements.
4. I've spent some time in sketchup again and I sent updated blueprint to metal shop, asking them to make it from 4mm steel and make some bends. They agreed and it was prepared for pickup the other day. Awesome service, big props to them!
5. When I picked it up, I could immediately tell that it was a lot heavier. But still well within safe range linear actuator could bare. It has 100kg push/pull force but I didn't want to exceed 30kg of total weight to stress it. Metal console weighs 8kg, another 5kg for monitor swivel mounts and 15kg for monitors. My target was met, hooray!
6. So I drilled holes again, (and adding some more holed for bigger 4K 32" monitors in future) and went to workshop to weld it again. It was 10 minute job now.
7. When I got home, I was confident that this will work just fine and painted it right away. For paint I used same color as for OSBs, it is primarily for metal anyway.
8. When it dried I've mounted swivel mounts and got prepared for final assembly.

The Wall

1. I've started to mount first couple OSBs with slats to the framing, keeping it at level.
2. I've pre-drilled and holes and sinked screw heads to keep it tidy. For this I used crews for drywall putting 3 in each stud (left, center, right). In 4 studs (bottom, 2x middle, top) that makes 12 screws in each OSB.
3. I've wired up wall sockets. Then added another board and wired up lighting. This totally depends on you. You can go for RGB lighting or whatever you like so no further detail from me.
4. Now it's time for the monitor lift

The Lift

1. OSB board that has vertical holes (in my case it's 3rd from left) was put aside and I'll be using it to mount the rising mechanism
2. I mocked everything up and was curious if it will work (video attached). And it did. Awesome
3. Linear rails are mounted on the OSB with screws coming through to the wooden slat in front, keeping it well attached and preventing ripping out.
4. For the linear actuator mount I used piece of sturdy wood that is screwed and glued to the OSB. Theres also mount on the other side attached to the exact center of the console. Always make sure the forces are spread evenly on both rails and it's moving freely. You should be very precise when drilling holes for rail sliders.
5. Wiring PSU and controller was straight forward. So it is power to the PSU from your wall socket and then 2 x 12V wires to your controller. I'm not using whole stroke of the linear actuator so I needed to add two micro switches to the controller so it knows when to stop at the bottom and on the top. Diagrams are attached.
6. Loose wires were cowardly glued with hot glue, but it will last.
7. I've assembled everything and finished up wiring inside cavity. 3 electrical sockets are used for monitors and one to provide power to lift's PSU.

Cable management

1. Now it was time to clean up everything and prepare to route all cables. I knew it will be challenging, but somehow I made it work. I drilled holes for cable ties in metal part coming through the slat wall, ensuring it's not touching anything because it might get damaged after some time by moving up and down. At this point power a Display port cables were ready and I could finally mount my DELL monitors.

Mounting monitors

1. I had to attach metal plate to monitor's VESA console and then hang them on the swivel mounts using two bolts.
2. Then I took some time to align them properly, but it wasn't as hard as I thought because my holes were drilled very precisely. Once finished, I've tightened every bolt possible to prevent misalignment.

Testing

1. Before hanging monitors I actually stress tested the overall strength by lifting myself on it! (my after-christmas weight is around 80kg).
2. I've connected all cables to the computer and everything worked on first try.
3. I still plan to do some minor updates and finish up a few details, but it's not worth to mention here.

I know it would be better to make a fancy video about this project rather than write a long text with few pictures, but I was in a hurry and needed to get this slat wall done ASAP. To write this guide by itself took me all day so I may consider taking videos in future projects (if any), but for now, it'll have to be enough. This guide, (even though it's not as detailed guide as you might want to) serves a presentation for those that are looking for ideas how to create something awesome, even if you have only intermediate crafting skills like me. It's been a wild ride for me, but overall I'm very happy with the result. Even more happy for myself because I made it to relive my back pain and that is the most rewarding thing i could do for myself lately.

If you ever decide to make something similar based on my "guide" feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to help.

PS: Text correction and updates coming up