Residential space
Home Office and Study Design
What a project here covers
- Desk placement worked out against daylight and camera direction
- Task lighting and a screen-friendly ambient layer
- Power, data and cable management planned rather than added later
- Storage for documents, hardware and the things a desk accumulates
- An intentional video-call background
- A way to close the workspace down, where the room is shared
What this room has to solve
The desk faces a wall in the darkest corner
A desk gets put wherever there is a gap, which is usually the spot with no daylight. Sitting side-on to a window rather than facing it or backing it is almost always the better position, and it costs nothing to plan.
Every call shows the bedroom
If the camera is pointed at an unmade bed or a wardrobe, the room is failing at a job it now has. A considered background, a shelf, a panelled section, a plain wall with decent light, solves it permanently.
Work never ends because it never closes
A desk that cannot be shut or tidied away keeps the room in work mode all evening. Shutters, a fold-down top, or simply a cupboard that swallows the paperwork make a real difference in a small flat.
Materials and finishes
- Work surface
- Matte rather than gloss, because a shiny desk under a downlight is a mirror. Depth of at least 600 mm for a monitor, more if there are two.
- Acoustics
- A rug, curtains or an upholstered panel behind the desk take the echo out of calls. Hard rooms sound terrible on a microphone and it is an easy fix.
- Seating
- An ergonomic chair is the one item worth buying properly. Nothing in the joinery compensates for eight hours in the wrong chair.
What we will ask you
- How many hours a day is this used, and how many days a week?
- How many screens, and is there a printer, a scanner or hardware to house?
- Are there video calls, and what should be behind you?
- Is this a dedicated room or a corner of one that has another job?
- Does anyone else need to use the same desk?
In more detail
Light, then everything else
Daylight from the side is the target. Facing a window puts glare on the screen and behind a window puts you in silhouette on every call, so a desk turned ninety degrees to the glass is usually the answer. Where there is no daylight, a proper task light and an ambient layer that lifts the wall behind the screen stop the room feeling like a cupboard at four in the afternoon.
The background is part of the brief now
Video calls made the wall behind you part of the interior. It does not need to be elaborate. A plain painted section with a single shelf and a warm light on it, positioned so the camera catches it, is enough, and it stops the rest of the room having to be tidy for a meeting.
Closing it down
In a shared room, the ability to shut the work away matters more than the desk itself. Roller shutters on the joinery, a fold-down desk top, or a tall cupboard that takes the whole setup all work. The point is that the room stops being an office at some point in the evening.
Talk about your
home office
Projects involving this room
Rooms this one usually comes with
Draft wording.This page was written by us from your brief rather than by you. Read it, change anything that is not how you work, and we will set it exactly as you want it.
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Tell us about the property and what you want from it. We will come back with a plan and a detailed estimate.