Standing desks in Cape Town

What "programmable" means

The frame has a switch under the front edge with memory buttons. Each person saves their sitting height and their standing height once, then presses one button to move between them. Without saved heights people hold a button and guess, and after a week they stop standing. That is the single feature that decides whether a sit stand desk gets used, and every frame on this page has it.

The top: melamine or hard wearing laminate

The standard top is 22 mm melamine in seven colour combinations, all included in the price: all white, white on storm grey legs, Barrel Oak, Ferrara Oak, Mondego Elm and Marmara Walnut on white, grey or black frames. The hard wearing laminate upgrade adds between R 5 700 and R 7 500 depending on the size, and is for a top that will be scrubbed, used as a shared hot desk, or expected to look new in ten years. For most offices the melamine is the right call.

The executive standing desk is different: a shaped birch ply top with a soft touch matt laminate in white or black, both included, with the curves of a designed piece rather than a rectangle. Its matching storage is birch ply too, which is why the pedestal for it costs more than a standard mobile pedestal.

Single, L or back to back

A single desk is the right buy for one person, from R 14 892.50 incl VAT (R 12 950 ex VAT).

The L shape adds a 900 by 600 or 1050 by 600 return on its own lifting frame, so the whole L rises together. It suits a manager who works across two surfaces, and it is the configuration to choose if a second screen and paperwork both need a home.

The dual desk is two tops back to back on one shared frame. It is the cheapest way to give two people standing desks, R 28 405 incl VAT (R 24 700 ex VAT) for the pair against R 29 785 incl VAT (R 25 900 ex VAT) for two singles, and it takes a fabric centre screen for R 3 200. The trade off is honest: the two tops rise together, so both people stand or both sit. For a pair who work the same hours it is ideal; for two people with different habits, buy two singles.

Cable management on a desk that moves

A desk that rises 600 mm pulls on every cable attached to it. The frames come with a cable tray under the top so the slack is carried up and down rather than dragged across the floor. Add power at the top and the problem goes away entirely: a flip up unit with two plugs and USB set flush into the top is R 7 500 all in, or a round unit in the 80 mm cable port is R 3 650. One five metre cable then runs from the desk to the wall and everything else plugs in on the top.

Modesty panels and screens

A fabric modesty panel under the front of the top closes the gap that appears when the desk is raised, R 1 850 in eighteen fabric colours. A screen that rises above the top at the front is R 2 900 and gives a standing person the same privacy a seated one had.

What the guarantee covers

Almost everything we sell carries a 5 year guarantee against manufacturing defects in normal office use, fair wear and tear excluded. Stackable chairs and barstools carry one year, poly chairs three years, and on sit stand desks the five years covers the frame's electronics, motors and glides, which are the parts that fail on cheap imported frames. The exact term for each product is printed on its page and on every quote line.

The honest case for buying them

Nobody should promise a standing desk fixes back pain; the evidence is mixed and the desk is a tool, not a treatment. What is not in doubt is that people who have the option to stand use it, that hot desking offices need desks that adjust to whoever sits down, and that corporate tenants now write "sit stand" into fit out briefs as standard. If you are buying a floor of desks for the next ten years, a fixed height desk is the choice you will replace first.