Grovemade Desk Shelf

Grovemade makes desk accessories out of walnut and leather and aluminum in Portland. Raised to improve your monitor to eye level while creating storage underneath for a keyboard, notebook, or hard drive, the desk shelf is their anchor piece. The shelf is a single slab of domestic hardwood with aluminum legs that are angled just enough to look intentional. Proportions are sized to hold a 27-inch monitor without extending past the edges of a standard desk. Grovemade's position is that the objects on your desk affect how you think about your work. Desk shelf anchors a system that includes a keyboard tray, a pen holder, a mouse pad, and a monitor stand, all made from the same materials with the same visual language. The price is about $200 for the shelf alone, and a full desk setup with matching accessories can run over $600. Expensive for wood and metal objects that you could approximate with a stack of books and a cutting board. But Grovemade pieces are designed to work together and to look like a single system. Satisfaction of having a unified desk surface is more significant than I expected. The walnut develops a richer tone over time as the oil finish ages, and the aluminum legs don't scratch the desk because the contact points have felt pads. I want the shelf but I have not bought it because I can't quite rationalize $200 for something that solves a problem a $15 monitor riser could also solve. Even though I know the experience of using it would be different.