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A Desk for Every Home Office
To keep your work energized, a great desk is key. One of these 17 styles — from modern to vintage, sleek to salvaged — will work beautifully
Houzz Contributor. I am a former magazine editor specializing in travel and design. I just completed my first remodel, turning my crumbling 1941 kitchen into a beauty of grays, whites and natural wood. If I could, I'd sleep on the countertop. That's how much I love it.
You can also read my parenting blog on Baby Center http://blogs.babycenter.com/author/sschoech/
Houzz Contributor. I am a former magazine editor specializing in travel... More »
A desk, like a kitchen, is where form and function have to really make an effort to get along. Too much function and you get piles of paper, ugly cords and a blaring lamp. Too much form and you get a lovely piece of fluff with no place to put a pencil, let alone a laptop.
A desk is intensely personal. What sparks your imagination? What clutters your mind? The answers are going to be different for each of us, but they are important questions to ask. Some of us need big old military desks, and some of us like robin's egg blue with a nice Louis XIV leg.
The 17 desks below cover most of the bases — from spendy to thrifty and elegant to workhorse. They are built in, freestanding, vintage and new. All of them are supposedly the same basic piece of furniture, but they all have very distinctive personalities.
Which one can you picture yourself at?
A desk is intensely personal. What sparks your imagination? What clutters your mind? The answers are going to be different for each of us, but they are important questions to ask. Some of us need big old military desks, and some of us like robin's egg blue with a nice Louis XIV leg.
The 17 desks below cover most of the bases — from spendy to thrifty and elegant to workhorse. They are built in, freestanding, vintage and new. All of them are supposedly the same basic piece of furniture, but they all have very distinctive personalities.
Which one can you picture yourself at?
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Built-In Beauties
Built-ins are great space savers, but they often look like cheap cabinets with a slab of granite in between. This simple slab of natural wood with bookshelves overhead elevates the built-in to an architectural statement.
Built-ins are great space savers, but they often look like cheap cabinets with a slab of granite in between. This simple slab of natural wood with bookshelves overhead elevates the built-in to an architectural statement.
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For the whimsical among us, anything goes. This colorful, unexpected workspace is also highly functional — just look at those cabinets hiding what is surely a clutter of papers.
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| A simple, clean-lined built-in with the added benefits of a bright color and smooth wood (no one wants to write on wood grain — too bumpy). |
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| This is one way to beat boredom at work: Turn your wall into a projection screen. Perfect for the (well-established) screenwriter. |
| Use your wall space. By making an entire wall into a bulletin board, you get to fill your room with ideas, inspiration and sudden strokes of genius. And it actually makes clutter look good. |
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Free-Floating Charmers
Why sit with your back to the room? Pull your desk away from the wall, use the wall space for storage and face outward (where the action is).
Why sit with your back to the room? Pull your desk away from the wall, use the wall space for storage and face outward (where the action is).
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by Kerrie L. Kelly
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| A long desk leaves space for working and space for meeting. And here, the problem of storage is solved with a black filing cabinet that doubles as a side table. It barely looks like office furniture. |
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A simple table desk is possible when you have a cabinet behind you to hold all the unsightly stuff. Sometimes I think a clean and lovely surface like this could do a lot for my productivity.
by Kaylovesvintage
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Vintage Dreamboats
OK, so it wasn't made to accommodate a giant computer, but this desk sure does sit well with a molded plastic chair from the '60s, and all those tiny drawers are perfect for treasures.
OK, so it wasn't made to accommodate a giant computer, but this desk sure does sit well with a molded plastic chair from the '60s, and all those tiny drawers are perfect for treasures.
by Amy Lau Design
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Form over function. And what a form it is.
by Jeanette Lunde
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Combine an old farm table with some wood shelving and a few crates, and there you have it: a perfectly functional, crafty-cute office with vintage flair.
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by French Larkspur
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| A vintage toolbox significantly upgrades a vintage school desk's usability (that's modern talk for "creates more space to put stuff.") The old black chalkboard looks period perfect, doesn't it? |
Major midcentury modern points. This triangular desk with its Scandinavian bones fits perfectly in this window nook. To die for.
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Clever Workspaces
There is nothing quite so sleek and simple as the parson's desk. But it can be a bit cramped. Lean a giant bulletin board against the wall and increase your surface space.
There is nothing quite so sleek and simple as the parson's desk. But it can be a bit cramped. Lean a giant bulletin board against the wall and increase your surface space.
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Make use of that awkward, cramped space under the stairs with a tiny built-in. Your workspace can double as a great hiding spot.
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This space has two things going for it. 1. It's in a closet and thus not taking up floor space, and 2. close the curtain and it's gone — no need to look at those unwritten thank-you cards while you're eating. Oh, also, it's cute.
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Hallways aren't just for walking anymore. This one doubles as a workspace with a simple wood-slab built-in.
Ideabook published on June 4, 2012.
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