Home office
interior design.

At least 600mm, and 750mm if you use a large or dual monitor — a screen too close is the single most common cause of eye strain in home setups. We also keep the desk height at a proper 750mm and check it against your chair, because a dining-height table and a low chair will wreck your back in a fortnight.

Not straight into the window, and not with the window directly behind you. The first blinds your screen, the second turns you into a silhouette on every video call. A desk set perpendicular to the glass gets daylight across the work surface without either problem.

Considerably. A fabric or acoustic-panel backdrop behind the desk, a carpeted or rug-covered floor, full-length curtains and a solid-core door with a bottom seal together kill most of the echo that makes a small hard-surfaced room sound so bad on a headset. It is soft mass that does the work.

It gets designed out. A grommet in the desktop, a hidden cable tray under the desk, a rear service cavity in the panelling, and a dedicated router and UPS cubby with ventilation and its own socket. You should be able to vacuum under the desk without unplugging anything.

Often the smartest use of a spare room. A wall bed or a daybed with storage under it, a wardrobe section that holds both files and a guest’s luggage, and a desk that folds down to a console. The room stays a working office six days a week and becomes a bedroom in ten minutes.

We design it deliberately. A clean panelled or textured plane, one bookshelf run with a little asymmetry, a plant, and a soft light bounced onto your face from the front — not the ceiling downlight that puts shadows under your eyes. It is a small thing that changes how you read on screen every day.