Condo Blues: How to Make an Office Chair Duct Tape Foot Rest in Ten Minutes Flat!

Thursday, August 28, 2014

How to Make an Office Chair Duct Tape Foot Rest in Ten Minutes Flat!

My feet don’t reach the floor when I sit in my desk chair to work on the computer.

If I lower my chair so my feet reach the floor, then my computer monitor and the keyboard tray on my desk are too high and give me a slight shrug while I work. You will not believe how much head, neck, and back pain that barely noticeable tic of non alignment can cause.

If I don't get a migraine, the pain makes me feel beaten up all over my body, pain shoots down my extremities, and I feel like I want to vomit.

It took me years to  find the right person to tell me that a poor ergonomic work station not tailored to someone of my petite stature is the cause of my mystery symptoms.

Luckily, since I already use a desk with a lowered keyboard tray,  most of the adjustments I need to do to make sure my arms are wrists are parallel to my keyboard are on my desk chair.   I use a couple of thick books as a monitor stand (,) some painter tape on the bottom of my desk chair to remind me where to reset my chair height, and awareness that if for example, I'm starting to feel a shooting pain in my arm I might be hunching over or set the mouse just a little too far right from its original position which makes me overreach slightly.

That's the shirt story long on why my feet often dangle three and half inches above the floor everyday while I work.


The is part of the fun of being fun sized!


This is not ergonomic for the lower half of my body. Sometimes I get a slight knee ache.


Ergonomics people suggest an under desk footrest for shorties like me. Again, the commercial desk foot stools  are a little too high or only work if I wear a certain type of shoe. Not gonna happen. I like variety in my footwear.

I found  that the Yellow Pages telephone book is a size footrest for me. It isn't too high that I can’t wear heels (when I worked in a real office office) and good enough when I wear flats  go barefoot in the summer.

I’ve been using telephone book foot rests under my desk ever since.

This is my current desk foot rest. The covers are torn and the pages are wrinkled. I don’t see a replacement phone book in my future because Husband and I don’t have a land line. Let’s turn this old telephone book into a foot stool with the help of a stash of duct tape I found when organizing my craft room.


DIY Ergonomic Desk Foot Rest






You will need:

1 or more telephone books – How many you need will  depend upon how high you want your footrest and the size of the phone book(s) you have on hand.

Duck Brand Tape  -  How many rolls will depend upon the finished size of your foot rest and if you want to make a design with more than one  color or design of

Duck Tape Single Sheets

Fiskars Crafts Duck Edition Scissors - They are made to cut duct tape and only scissors I've found that cuts duct tape on the first try!


Dog Project Manager  - I recruited Lacey

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post for your convenience.


I thought this project is for your food blog Lazy Budget Chef. Cleaning up after food projects are my specialty! I’m disappointed in you Lisa. *sigh*










Make it:

1. Wrap the telephone book (or stack of telephone books to the desired height) in one piece of continuous duct tape with overlapping edges from side to side. 


I smoothed the wrinkled pages flat with my hands as I was taping them down.


2. Wrap the telephone book  in one piece of continuous duct tape with overlapping edges from top to bottom. This will keep the telephone book closed and the pages from shifting back and forth under the weight of your feet.

3. At these point your foot stool is finished unless you want to decorate it with a third layer of tape. I have leftover Duck Tape bits and figure this is as good as time as any to use my leftovers.

Also, the hot pink Duck Tape base layer I want to use up doesn’t coordinate with the desk and chair in my office. There’s that.



  • I covered the book spine and page edges with Checkered Decorated Duck Tape. I lucked out my telephone book is the same width as my duct tape. If not, I would have layered it.

Bye bye pink!
  • I stuck one leftover black Duck Tape Single Sheet in the center top and center bottom of my footstool. My telephone book is larger than my 81/2 by 11” sheet of Duck Tape Single Sheet. I filled in the edges with black duct tape.
  • I’m glad I used three layers of duct tape. I think it is sturdier and the pages doen’t shift anymore. There was a slight page shift from time to time on the two layer of tape version. The leftovers of the one layer of duct tape version is the before photo in the post.




4.  Plop your duct tape phone book foot rest under your desk and prop up your feet!




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