DIY - PC Gaming Chair

[dttuner]

Most gaming chairs you see on the market (if you can find one) are usually prohibitively expensive, or do not offer platforms to hold our keyboard/mouse combos.
Some examples include:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1964592,00.asp
http://pyramat.com/
amongst many others...


My goal was to great an extremely comfortable, ergonomic chair for those long-haul gaming sessions on my PC. After some searching and research, I finally purchased the following:

It's called the Teardrop Mouse Pad, by Dexterity Platforms:



The product is universal, and easily adjusts to fit any chair arm. It doesn't cause any damage or wear to the chair arm underneath, and is adjustable in length, width, and lateral position. You can even flip the platform upside down, and use the flat underside as a stable base where I personally mounted a small keyboard using 3M double-stick tape.

Example (my setup looks identical):



This way, there's no leaning/hunching over your keyboard and mouse to play endless hours of PC games. First off, it gets really uncomfortable.. and more importantly, it's bad for your back!

Look at the difference in posture seen in the picture below:

As you can see in the second pic, her arm is completely supported and at rest... and her hand falls exectly where the mouse is. This is the case with my setup as well. And since I have long arms, all I had to do was adjust the Teardrop mount a bit forward.

There are a few other similar products on the market, but the ones I've seen are designed solely as a mouse pad. The Teardrop offers some adaptability.

My next step is to pickup my Nostromo N52 Gamepad from my girlfriend's house, and replace the bulky keyboard:



Now I can kick my feet up on a footrest, lean back, and enjoy hours of comfortable gaming. Let me mention that the most important element of this project is the chair itself. I drove around for two days, from one office furniture place to another, until I found the perfect chair for me.
Unless you already own a great comfy chair, I suggest you do the same.
Don't settle for that beaten-up chair in your basement.

Total investment (not including mouse&keyboard) = less than $200
Most of the expense came from the chair itself. If you have a nice chair already, you'll only need to buy the platforms.

Thanks!

EDIT - Don't forget to install a cup holder on your new GamingChair 5000!
hehehe.