It's an old saying that is definitely quite true. Often times you setup something in a bodged way with the intention to do it properly or revisit it later and just never get round to it. Inertia of having a functional if not ideal solution easily lets you put off doing more to change or improve things.
I found this the case with my work from home setup. Before the pandemic I worked in office 5 days a week as dealing with hardware its often tricky to do that remote sometimes you need to go and poke the thing with a stick regardless of what clever remote access mechanisms and test housings you devise. As a result when I did work from home for what ever reason it was mostly just putting my work laptop on some available surface as is. It was a very infrequent event and didn't require the investment of some dedicated setup for the handful of times I needed to do it.
When we were suddenly forced to work from home with little or no notice back in 2019 I had to figure something better out since just working on a bare laptop for any significant work is inconvenient and less than ideal ergonomically just adding a proper keyboard and mouse improves things a great deal and dealing with a lot of files and having to access a lot of files at the same time having a second larger screen makes things more efficient. I scrambled to piece together functional work from home setup with the things I had available. I repurposed an old spare gaming monitor that had some slight burn in but was otherwise fine for text and such, I grabbed a cheap logitech keyboard and wireless mouse from amazon, I added a usb hub and set it all up on a plastic folding table in the lounge.
I could have set things up where my main pc setup is and maybe installed a kvm or something make that serve both as my home setup and my work but I wanted some separation so I could work in one place and then when I was done game somewhere else even if it was only taking a few steps away. I know a lot of people didn't bother with that sort of thing and some of them then had trouble switching off when the work day was done. Just answering that one more email just checking that few lines of code and then before you know it you've worked till midnight. We had one guy during that time who had to be told to stop as he was working all hours and doing himself a mischief.
With a workable if shoddy setup I was able to keep working and I intended when I had more time to revisit it maybe do something more dedicated. Innertia and just having it work enough meant I never really got round to doing anything about it and it was also a little unclear back then how long the unnatural state of affairs would last maybe we would all be back in the office tomorrow and then spending money and time on some work from home setup you no longer needed would be a waste.
Fast forward to now and some 7 years later with one redundancy a year of job hunting and year and a bit into the new job that is hybrid with 4 days a week in office I was still using that bodged together setup.
Given it's a new year I decided I should really do something about that and began looking at possible solutions to a more dedicated setup. I wanted something I could use when I needed that didn't take up a lot of space the rest of the time. I looked at various folding desks and found a few good options. Ikea had this bookcase thing you could pull out and form a desk area which I liked the look off but was a bit too wide for the space I had in mind a section of the living room which faces my balcony. At the moment I have my laser cutter setup there (from before I got a hepa filter for it and had to shove the hose out the door) it takes up most of that wall and I had hoped maybe a bookcase could just slot in at one end providing a bit of extra storage and then deploying out as a working desk when I needed it then fold up and out the way with the monitor tucked away on top when I didn't but there wasn't enough width there for the laser and that bookcase thing.
I looked at some collapsible dining tables designed for small flats that fold down into a small box that contains the surface as a set of sections you can slot onto some rails but it was a similar width to the ikea bookcase if not wider and less convenient to put up or knock down. I looked at some of the folding on wheels tables and they looked promising their folded state fairly narrow so when not in use I could roll them out the way into the gap between the window and the laser so they would take up less space and when I needed them I could roll them out and unfold the surface.
I also came across some very narrow mini desks with wheels and folding desktops and most of those were fairly cheap consisting of some metal frames and a few pieces of mdf to form the surface. They also had the advantage of being smaller than a lot of the folding dining tables since they were designed as a desk for one person rather than a family of four.
I ordered one off of amazon and added a cheap monitor and laptop stand arm. By attaching the monitor and the laptop to a separate set of articulating arms clamped to back of the slim folding desk I can reposition them to be out the way so the thing only takes up the footprint of the folded desk when not in use.
When it comes time to work I can roll it out unfold the desk surface and reposition the monitor and laptop to allow a good viewing area. The monitor arm attached via a vesa mount which when I got it I realized the monitor I was using wasn't equipped with so I had to get an adapter that just grabs hold of the screen with a set of metal hooks that bolt to the back of the vesa plate. It worked well enough to allow me to swing the monitor out and to a good viewing angle/position while the laptop sits next to it with screen lined up nicely. With those two held up off the surface the only thing that I need on the desk is the keyboard and mouse and so having a relatively small desk area isn't a problem. I also did a bit of work to cable everything nicely using some heavy duty sticky velcro tape to attach a 4 way socket with a decent length extension so I can then plug the power for the screen and the laptop adapter into which is then held securely when I'm moving it about and I can then leave it plugged in or disconnect it with just the one plug.
For the chair I tried using my crappy old folding chair but that was quite uncomfortable, I can't reuse my office chair I have for my gaming setup as that's up in the loft area of my flat up a flight of stairs. I considered getting a second office chair I could use but I did like the idea of being able to fold everything up shove it away in the corner and not have to deal with the footprint a normal office chair inevitably takes up. I found a better more comfortable folding chair with wheels and bought that. It was pretty good fairly comfortable the height of its inbuilt arm rests feels a little off so maybe I need to do something about that and I may revisit the chair situation down the line (in another 7 years? :D).
But I was pretty pleased with the setup thus far it's ready to go pretty quickly just roll it out unfold the wings that hold the desk surface in place plonk the laptop on the tray and plug it into the hub which serves as the hdmi connection to the monitor as well as power delivery for the laptop and then a connection to the little usb dongle that gives it access to the mouse and keyboard. Unfold the chair sit down maybe reposition things a little and I'm ready to go. I've got the screen real estate I need with the monitor and laptop and then space for the mouse and keyboard and enough left over to put my coffee cup down. So far so good but then I've only really used in anger today so we shall see if it fits the bill long term.
Now I need to tidy up the folding table and put that away somewhere maybe tidy things up a little ... well maybe later :D