Having your own desk is essential for so many people who either need to work or study at home, enabling you to focus on the task at hand instead of getting distracted while trying to work on the couch, bed, or kitchen table. In small homes, you might already have to sacrifice something else to squeeze in a tiny home office, so every desk on my list is less than four feet wide – some much less.
I decided to divide my favorite small desks by price ranges, which is largely impacted by the type and quality of the material used. Most high-end desk are made of solid, quality wood, which is expensive just for the raw material, so you’ll only find cheap, thin wood or other materials on some of the cheapest desks. As always, you get what you pay for, but also get what you like.
So, without further ado, here’s my small desks for small spaces list for 2010 .
Small Desks for Less than $200
This IKEA desk is only about four feet wide, with simple, affordable yet elegant look consumers have come to associate with IKEA furniture. There are no drawers, but there are cable compartments for keeping the look uncluttered, and you can attach the storage area on either the right or left side. Plus, at less than $70, it’s hard to complain about much of anything, except, perhaps, that it needs to be mounted to the wall to hold steady.
Office Depot has several modular-style, industrial-looking office desk/workstations for less than $100, including this zillope computer desk with pull-out keyboard, wheels, and attached vertical shelving. All the built-in storage options are nice, though that CD holder might be a little dated and the space used more effectively to store something else instead.
Staples, like Office Depot, has many industrial, modular desks for sale, though at a bit higher price range ($170 for the desk pictured). I particularly like this small desk on wheels – somehow it manages to have style despite the fact that it uses some less expensive materials than some other desks on this list. With its own lower shelf for the keyboard and mouse, and a small set of drawers, it’s a complete mobile computing workstation.
Small Desks for Less than $300
This desk from the Container Store is a little unusual-looking, but it gets definite points for space efficiency, allowing you to roll it out on wheels when you need the full desk space for using your laptop or paying the bills. Plus, it’s got tons of built-in storage to store little items that so easily get lost on other desks. It would also work well as a non-computer desk with all its little storage compartments, whether that’s paying the bills or doing a craft project.
This white, country-inspired desk from Target is surprisingly cute for being from this megastore (and reasonably priced at $250). It comes with the hutch pictured, and has a pull-out drawer to hold a mouse and keyboard. It’s also cable-friendly, with a hole in the back to let your cords through invisibly. No drawers or any storage attached except what the hutch provides, but it makes up for it by maximizing horizontal space on the desk.
This waxed brown wooden desk by JC Penney is stylish in a modern colonial kind of way, with four drawers with elegant silver knobs plus a pull-out keyboard tray and two open shelves on the bottom of each side to hold magazines or loose documents. Its $280 price tag is nothing to scoff at, either.
Small Desks for Less than $400
Crate and Barrel is known for sturdy yet elegant furniture, and this wooden desk with a deep top drawer and a legal-sized filing cabinet in the bottom drawer gets maximum points for both space efficiency and style. It’s a great work area for someone who doesn’t need to sit in front of the computer all day and will just be doing occasional work there. The rest of the time, you can keep the pull-out board retracted and use the glass-topped surface to display decorative pieces.
This Home Decorators desk at Amazonis sturdy without seeming bulky or being made of solid wood. It comes in two widths: one, which is essentially the width of the keyboard pull-out drawer, is a mere two and a half feet wide. The other with, still a slim three and a half feet, includes a drawer next to the keyboard shelf. You can choose from four different wood stains, and for the slightly wider model, the price comes in at $360. The smaller version is much cheaper, at $160, but both are quality desks.
Small Desk Splurges
At $800, this solid hardwood desk from Pottery Barn has quality workmanship that will last decades. It’s only an inch over three feet wide, with a fold down writing and computing surface that hides the numerous drawers when the shelf is up. There are numerous cable holes in the back for electronics charging, telephone cords, and Ethernet cords. All the little details, including the pewter hardware, are lovely as well. It’s available in antique white or a mahogany stain.
Got any more small desks that you love? Let me know in the comments section!
Many apartments and condos include tiny bathrooms to maximize the size of the bedroom and living room areas for a given square footage floor plan. However, the downside to this approach is that it often results in cramped, colorless bathrooms (plus, it’s usually windowless) and thoroughly lacking in any spark of life. There’s no room to hang any artwork, and many renters are reluctant to paint. So, does that mean you are out of options for decorating your small bathroom? Not at all!
Here are some of my favorite small bathroom decorating ideas.
Add color to washed-out bathroom walls
Tile stickers like these tile tattoos can add color and patterns to boring tile, especially if the tile isn’t particularly attractive and you want to draw attention to a chic design instead.- Removable wall stickers are easily installed on normal drywalls. My favorite approaches are to cluster the graphics into a small area to get the effect of a painting being hung there. The quality of graphics vary widely, so keep looking if you Some wall adhesives are even reusable, so you can bring them with you to your next home.
- Fluffy, colorful towels hung on attractive rings or bars in your bathroom can make the room feel softer and more lively.
Change bathroom fixtures (keep the old ones if you’re renting)
- Changing your shower head from a cheap, plastic head to a stainless steel or brushed nickle shower head with different massage options can transform your showering experience from something necessary to something pleasant. Installing a new showerhead doesn’t take more than five minutes, either.
- Similarly, sink faucets and knobs aren’t hard to change out, as long as you know the size of the hole and stick with that size. Extra tall faucets will enable you to fit just about anything into the sink for washing. Just store the old fixtures under the bathroom sink until you move, and your landlord will never be the wiser.
- Ugly florescent lighting can be mitigated with a cute, bathroom-safe light instead. Most simply “clip on” to the typical recessed lighting found in bathrooms, and can be pulled out again when you move.
Use removable accessories to add color, texture, and design
- A giant candle next to the sink can provide much softer lighting for baths as well as being a piece of art in itself. Stick with beeswax or soy candles, instead of the typical, petroleum-based paraffin wax candles, to reduce indoor pollutants within the enclosed space of your bathroom.
- Get cute “necessary” appliances like toothbrush holders and soap holders. They don’t have to be boring, or even conventional! An old-fashioned Coke bottle can hold toothbrushes. Liquid soap can be stored in a fashionable dispenser, for instance, and a hands-free automatic dispenser can reduce the need to clean out the dispenser.
- Cute, thick rugs make tiles seem much less harsh and makes the bathroom a much more comfortable place to be, and protect bare feet from cold bathroom floors in the wintertime!
Feng Shui and Your Home Office
This is Part 4 of 5 Microliving posts about feng shui.
The goal with feng shui in a home office - an area of your home where you need to stay focused and work productively – is to keep the yang, the bold, strong energy levels high, while still creating a few elements with the softer yin. Using halves will provide some balance so your heart doesn’t start racing every time you walk into your office, while still empowering you every time you sit down at your desk.
- Choose the location - A room near the front or back door is best, and as far apart physically from every other area in your home as you can make it. If there are two doors into the room, always use one just for going into the office, and the other for everything else.
- Position your work desk – The ideal location for your desk is diagonal in a corner, facing the entrance to the room. The second best is straight-on with the opposite wall from the entrance, still facing the entrance. Never sit with your back to the door. Try not to position the desk under a window unless it’s unavoidable.
- Re-energize dead spaces – Place a mirror on any partitions that exist between the door to the home office and your desk to reflect the energy halted by these physical disruptions back into the rest of the office.
- Combat negative spaces – Any flat, irregular spaces like jutting walls or jagged corners should be filled in with an easy-to-maintain indoor plant like lucky bamboo, or common potted plants, to counteract the negative energy produced by these dead spaces.
- Cover the walls - Don’t leave walls bare – they should have at least one positive picture, framed photo, or mirror on every available wall to provide positive, strong energy. For even better impact, line up your home office with the bagua chart and place pictures that represent the different aspects of the chart. Symbolism works too, so placing a photo of something like a vacation spot in the prosperity corner might be a good idea.
- Create separation – I know it might be hard to dedicate an entire room to just being an office when your home is small to start off with, so what you may need to do is separate, visually and physically, the office from the rest of your house. Use a screen divider, big potted plants, or something similar to separate the “office” from everything else.
- Finally, de-clutter your home office! - Of course you will have some papers and other office items floating around your desk, but keep everything stored neatly, and get everything that you’re not working on for that day out of sight and neatly into a drawer or filing cabinet. The flow of energy is disrupted by every item that doesn’t belong.
If you want to completely create a feng shui office, the next step is to place symbols of the different aspects on the bagua chart in the corresponding section of the room, such as a placing a small fountain, which can represent the flow of money, into the wealth corner. It’s much more important to find and use symbols are meaningful to you, plus it helps if you enjoy looking at them, than it is to follow specific suggestions.
Even a few of these feng shui home office suggestions should make a big difference in how you feel every time you sit down and get to work. And remember, a neat and de-cluttered office will make you a happier, more productive worker.
