Ultimate L-shaped desk for a tall guy's home-office

Ever since I moved here to Layton, UT and have been working out of my home office, I've been settling for two cheap desks side by side to hold my two monitors and three machines. The plan is to eventually buy or build the perfect desk for my environment.

Here are the obstacles:

1. I'm tall. I want any desk I end up with to be slightly taller than the standard desk. I've measured the precise location and height for where a keyboard should be, and I don't want it more or less than a half inch off either way.


2. I would rather use two keyboards and mice for my two computers than use a switch. Lately I've been doing most of my development by SSH from my windows computer, but I think the better setup for more organization is the way I used to do it, where I could keep all my SSH sessions open under one or two main KDE windows on a couple of virtual desktops. That's the main thing I loved about my linux environment, the multiple desktops and putting all my SSH windows under one tabbed window where I know where everthing is. It makes it much easier to manage my 12 different servers if I don't have to open another window and not have it always in a certain place. I have tried various windows programs that gave me multiple desktops, and some SSH programs that have tabs, but none are free and have the features that come with KDE.


3. I need the desk to be an L-shaped desk. I have one corner to put it in where I will be able to look out the window, and yet have a wall behind the main monitor so that I can control the brightness of the wall behind the monitor to reduce the strain on my eyes. An L-shaped desk will also give me the most room for writing / planning as I don't type all day everyday and hope to do more planning before actual programming. The L-shape will also allow me to use my rotating chair to simply switch between machines / monitors. That will allow me the power to control two computers easily at once and have the computer I'm working on directly in front of me so I don't have to strain my neck or arms, etc.

I made up plans for exactly how I would build a desk that would suit my needs.
It would be strong, functional and exactly the right height width and depth. The problem is that it wouldn't be easy for me to make it look nice. I'm not a carpenter and I'm sure the desk would probably end up looking kind of plain if I were to build it myself. Maybe that wouldn't be bad, and I do have a couple of ideas for sprucing it up, but nothing that would be really easy. It would be hard for me to do things like custom cabinet doors and such without paying for them to be made separately. The big benefit of making it myself is that I could do it for $100 - $200. That is way less than what I have to pay for something the same size and exact dimensions I want (if I can even find it) anywhere else that I've looked.

There are a few desks I've considered:

Bush Desk


Bestar desk

Note that neither desk has legs at the corner that would prevent me from swinging my legs back and forth under the whole thing. Some desks have a leg or legs right at the corner and that is not OK with me.

I would also want to change the design of any pull-out keyboard holder so that it is at the exact position and height that I would want. I don't know if either of these desks would allow me to do that.

Anyone have any suggestions?