Home Office Ideas

September has a way of resetting the house. The kids are back at school, the caravan is off the drive, and the laptop that has spent the summer on the kitchen table suddenly needs a proper home. If you are looking for home office ideas that suit a normal Highland house rather than a converted barn with a view, this is for you.

We have furnished a lot of home offices from the showroom on Millburn Road, and the ones that work share three things: a desk that is the right depth, storage that closes, and a chair the owner actually wants to sit in. Everything else is styling. Here is how to get those three right, with real measurements, and then how to make the whole thing look like it belongs in your home.

Start with the desk, and start with depth

The mistake we see most often is buying a desk that is too shallow. It looks neat in a small room, then the monitor ends up 30cm from your face. The numbers that matter:

Measurement	What to aim for	Why
Depth	60cm minimum with a monitor; 40–45cm laptop only	Puts the screen at arm's length with a keyboard in front of it
Height	73–75cm	Elbows at roughly 90 degrees with a standard 45–47cm chair
Width	100–120cm for one screen; 140cm for two	Room for a notebook or a mug beside the keyboard
Knee clearance	60cm wide, 65cm high under the top	So the chair tucks fully underneath when you are done

If you work from a laptop and a notebook, a console table is one of the best small home office ideas there is. Console tables run around 35 to 45cm deep, so they sit against a wall in a hallway, on a landing or behind a sofa without stealing the room. Choose one with a drawer and the laptop, charger and mouse vanish into it at the end of the day. Our Cambridge console with two drawers and the Hampton oak console are the two we point people to most often for exactly this job.

If you do need a full-depth desk for a monitor, come and talk to us in store about what we can get for you. The rest of the advice below applies either way.

Storage that hides the job at five o'clock

The difference between a home office you enjoy and one you resent is whether you can stop looking at it. In a spare room that is also the guest room, or a living room that is also the office, closed storage is not a nice-to-have. It is the whole point.

Go tall, not wide

A single tall bookcase holds more than two low units and uses wall height you were not using anyway. Something in the region of 180 to 200cm tall and 80 to 90cm wide gives you five or six shelves: files and printer paper on the bottom, everyday reference in the middle, and the top two shelves for the things that make it feel like a room rather than an office. Our Cambridge 6ft bookcase and the Hatton large bookcase are both that shape. In a smaller room, a narrow bookcase at around 60cm wide does the same job in less floor space.

Closed doors below, open shelves above

If you can, choose a bookcase or sideboard with cupboard doors on the lower section. Paperwork, the router, the box of cables and the label printer all live behind the doors. The open shelves above hold books, a plant, a photo. From the sofa it reads as living room furniture, which in most Highland homes is exactly what it needs to be.

A bookcase as a room divider

In a bedroom or a long living room, a bookcase turned side-on to the wall can mark out the office end of the room without building anything. Keep it to 120cm or so in height if you want light to carry across the room, or go full height if you want the working end to disappear when you are on the sofa. Fix it to the wall or floor either way; a freestanding divider with books on it needs anchoring.

Small stuff needs a drawer

Remotes, chargers, pens and the children's homework will colonise any open surface. A lamp table with a drawer beside the desk, or a small chest in the corner, gives all of that somewhere to go. It also gives the printer a home that is not the desk.

The difference between a home office you enjoy and one you resent is whether you can stop looking at it.

A chair you can sit in for eight hours

Here is an honest opinion from a furniture shop: the black swivel office chair is comfortable, and it ruins the look of any room it is in. If your office is in a living space, the better answer for most people is a good dining chair.

What to look for:

Seat height of 45 to 47cm. That pairs with a 73 to 75cm desk or console so your forearms sit level on the top.
A back that supports the lower back. A ladder back or a solid panel back gives you something to sit against. A low cross back looks lovely and is fine for two hours, not eight.
A padded or fabric seat. A wooden seat is fine with a cushion; without one you will be standing up by eleven.
Arms optional, but check the clearance. Arms are comfortable but they stop a chair tucking under a shallow console table. Measure before you decide.

The Tucson ladder back with the fabric seat and the Cambridge ladder back are the two we would sit in for a working day. If you are matching a dining set you already own, bring a photo in and we will find the nearest chair.

The office in the spare room

The most common home office in the Highlands is the one that shares a room with a guest bed. It works, with two rules. First, put the desk where the guest will not have to climb over it: usually under the window, with the bed against the opposite wall. Second, keep 75cm of clear floor beside the bed so the room still feels like a bedroom when your mother-in-law arrives in December.

A console table under the window, a tall bookcase with closed lower doors, and a chair that tucks away is a complete office that takes up less than a square metre and a half of floor. We will cover the guest side of that room in more detail on Friday.

The office in the living room

If the office has to live in the living room, the trick is to stop it looking like one. Choose pieces from the same range as the rest of the room so the console, the bookcase and the chair sit together as furniture rather than equipment. Keep the desk surface clear of anything you would not leave out in a living room: a lamp and a plant, yes; a monitor arm and a mug tree, no. A drawer for the laptop finishes the job.

Light it properly

Highland winter light arrives late and leaves early, and an overhead bulb on its own is hard on the eyes by mid-afternoon. A task lamp on the desk or on a lamp table beside it, at roughly shoulder height when you are seated, makes a bigger difference to how the room feels at four o'clock in January than any other single change. Put the desk side-on to the window rather than facing it, so you get daylight without glare on the screen.

Frequently asked questions

How deep does a home office desk need to be?

Aim for 60cm of depth if you use a monitor, so the screen sits an arm's length away with room for a keyboard in front. A laptop-only setup can work at 40 to 45cm, which is why a console table makes a good compact desk. Standard desk height is 73 to 75cm.

What is the best home office furniture for a small room?

Go tall rather than wide. One tall bookcase holds more than two low units and uses floor space you were not using anyway. Pair it with a narrow desk or console table, a chair that tucks fully underneath, and a lamp table for the printer or a task lamp.

Can I use a dining chair as an office chair?

For a few hours a day, yes, and it looks far better in a living room or bedroom than a swivel chair. Choose one with a seat height of 45 to 47cm, a supportive back and a padded or fabric seat. For full eight-hour days, add a cushion or consider a dedicated office chair.

How do I hide a home office in a living room?

Use furniture that reads as living room furniture: a console table as a desk, a sideboard or bookcase with closed lower doors for files and cables, and a matching chair. When the laptop goes in the drawer at the end of the day, the room goes back to being a living room.

Can I see home office furniture in person in Inverness?

Yes. Bookcases, console tables, chairs and lamp tables are all on the floor at the Blackbridge showroom on Millburn Road, Inverness, so you can check heights, depths and finishes before you buy. Delivery is available across the Highlands and the rest of the UK.