6 Great Small Home Office Ideas and Tips

Small Office Décor Ideas

1. Go Vertical

When people have a lot of available space, they tend to spread out horizontally. But if you’re tight on square footage, you need to take advantage of the typically underutilized space above and below your desktop.

Monitor shelves, keyboard trays, and desk returns are great for maximizing available desktop space, and it’s generally easy to attach floating shelves or a pegboard to the wall above your desk.

And don’t forget about the area below your desktop. There’s usually room for a small file cabinet, a pencil drawer, a CPU stand (if you need one), a hanging desk organizer, and a backpack hook. You can also choose a standing workstation that comes with lower shelves perfect for a printer, books, and more.

2. Think Multifunctional

With really small spaces, you have to get extra creative. For example, a standing desk converter can help turn a kitchen table into an ergonomic sit stand workstation by day.

If you prefer working from the couch, a laptop desk raises your keyboard, mouse, and screen to a more comfortable height, while a portable laptop monitor helps you work more efficiently.

3. Seek Foldable and Stowable Designs

While we all love sitting in a plush, comfy executive chair, it takes up much space. If you don’t want to be tripping over office furniture when you’re not working, choose stuff that’s designed to stay out of your way.

For example, a standing desk chair easily tucks under a desk at night. Or, if you need to stash your workspace in the closet after hours, choose a foldable desk. 

4. Go Paperless

If you’ve worked for a company that’s been in business a long time, it probably has a copier room with rows of filing cabinets, each filled to the brim with paperwork. The beauty of today’s digital work environment is that hard copies of documents are largely unnecessary. Even sticky notes can be created on your computer. So, if you are comfortable (or can teach yourself to be comfortable) with ditching paper documents, it’s not only good for the environment, but it will also save space.

5. Adopt a Tiny House Mindset 

If you’ve ever watched one of those tiny house shows on HGTV, you’ll notice there isn’t a square inch of space in a tiny house that doesn’t serve at least one purpose. Every staircase has built-in cubbies, and every seating surface has integrated storage underneath.

To maximize your workspace, look at it from the lens of a tiny house (or RV) owner. In other words, choose to view even the smallest amount of unused floor or wall as an opportunity to add storage and/or functionality.

6. Reimagine Your Available Space

Outside of the bathroom and kitchen, there’s no rule that you have to use your house or apartment precisely as the builder intended.

For example, if you can survive with one less closet, convert it into a workspace. The best part, when you’re done working, you can close the closet door to hide your unsightly monitor, keyboard, and cords.

Or maybe ditch the overstuffed couch you’ve dragged from place to place since college in favor of a love seat and a compact standing desk. In other words, if you can detach yourself from the notion that each room in your home must serve a single, traditional purpose, you’ll create opportunities to integrate a work environment.

We hope you found these desk ideas for small spaces helpful. For more ideas, shop our selection of mobile workstations and small desks.