Walnut and Leather Keyboard Tray

Not long ago I posted a build of my dream desk setup. I spent weeks working on it and I was truly blown away by the reception I got on it. Overall I was super happy with the desk but there was one glaring blemish that kept nagging at me. That damn keyboard tray. You see, I intentionally built the desk quite high so that it could also function as a workbench and was a little more ergonomic for a taller guy like me (higher screen level). A high desk isn’t very comfortable to type and use a mouse on though, so I mounted a sliding keyboard and mouse tray on the underside of the desk. That lowered my input surface and allowed me to tuck the peripherals out of the way when I wasn’t using them. So everything was all good then, right?

sigh Not quite.

It worked well enough. The hardware itself was good, the sliders and the arm holding the tray were made of metal and quite robust. The problem was the deck of the tray itself. It was made from cheap, flimsy, plastic. The whole thing bowed under the weight of my peripherals and, overall, it just didn’t fit the aesthetic of my desk.

In this project I fixed all of those flaws and corrected the most glaring blemish, on what is otherwise, my favorite project to date. I made this custom keyboard tray out of solid walnut, and with the help of two of my friends we createa custom leather wrapped wrist rest filled with silicone.

You can check out the whole build on YouTube here:

And don’t forget to check me out on Instagram (@zacbuilds)