The number of people choosing to work from home is increasing. With the choice of spending and arduous and stressful commute compared to walking form one room into your ‘home office’ , you can see why working from home is gaining favour with so many.

If you are thinking of opting to work from home then you are going to have to get yourself kitted out. Most importantly is going to be a computer, desk and chairs. On top of that are going to be the essential accessories like filing space, software, and good lighting. Most of these you will need to purchase from your local store. Thing like office chairs are quite specialised and you will need to ensure that they have a good ergonomic design. An office desk is something that you can be a little more creative with and along the way save some cash.

Making you office desk

Many office desk solutions form high street stores can be on the flimsy side. I would heartily recommend building your own desk. Not only can you get it o fit your room perfectly (presuming you know how to use a tape measure that is), but you also get to choose the materials to use.

Most flat pack desk tend to be made from laminated chipboard, the reason for this I do not know as it is a terrible material and has a very limited lifespan.

This is an easy project to tackle and with a few basic tools you should be able to create a desk that will last for many years to come.

Planning

Take some time out to consider what things you be putting on your desk, less is best. The more cluttered you have your desk to worse it will be to work on. Space is key to working smarter. Get your monitor keyboard and if you have any notebook you normally use and lay it out on large surface. Move everything until you feel that is going to be comfortable. Considering having a method to raise and lower your monitor, as you going to mount it on the wall on a moveable bracket? Go through a number of layout designs and then take some measurements.

An L shaped desk will offer a solution for having a space for your computer and also a separate area for when you need to do paper work.

Full size plan

To ensure that you have planned your desk to fit into the room without doors and windows being impeded make a model. The simplest way to do this is to use something like cardboard boxes to mark out the area of the desk. Then just check that it doesn’t get it the way of any existing furniture.

There are many software solutions to provide you with an easy way to design and get plans printed. If you are familiar with search engines (which I am sure you are) then just type in something like’ furniture design software’.

Build

If you are serious about the build then you will need to get tooled up. You can hire these or even find them on auction sites, local listings like gum tree.

Materials.

For your first project the best material to use is likely to be MDF, as this is inexpensive and very string. Plus it can be stained or painted with ease.

Cables.

Lots of devices can now go wireless but if you want to stay away from battery power then you will need to accommodate your cable. If you neglect this you will need up with an unsightly mess of cables dangling from your new desk.