How to choose the home office desk that fits your needs

Some will not be returning to the conventions of a 9-5 even after the pandemic. We look at the practicalities of home offices 

The European-made Harto Hyppolite is a Scandinavian-inclined real wood desk that would reach over the living/office divide with ease, €780, O'Brien Office Systems, Cork, obos.ie. For a budget option, try the Lasabo from Ikea, €150.

The home office has become an urgent matter in the last year, and some workers will simply not be returning to the conventions of a 9-5 experience even as we wrestle the pandemic into surrender.

Bear in mind that a fifth of public workers will be logging in remotely on a permanent basis by year’s end.

Choosing the right desk is crucial, but at home, it has complications you can’t bring to HR.

Humanscale Float (standing desk), €1,432, with Freedom Chair from €835, huntoffice.ie. Fully does standing desk converters from €299 if you want to give the standing stance a try, fully.com.

LAPTOP ISSUES

I am not sure how anyone tolerates actually working for lengthy periods at a laptop on a standard desk, sitting or standing. The bowed angle of the neck puts enormous pressure on the cervical spine, concerning to any osteopath.

It’s easily remedied by the addition of a larger, independent screen at eye level, allowing the laptop to act as a keyboard and mouse point. Alternatively, you could elevate the laptop screen on a plinth and use a separate wireless keyboard (around €35) and mouse (around €25).

One online hint from health provider Veritas includes using wearable devices to measure your spinal posture and send the data to an app on your phone or tablet. One example is the Upright Go 2, which adheres in the area between your shoulder blades, reminding you when you’re slouching and training you to sit up naturally. From around €80, Amazon.

LOCATION AND STYLE

Depending on the location of your office area — marooned in an open-plan family space (as I am), crouched under stairs, or burrowed into your own dedicated room — furnishings will either mark an abrupt change of style scenery or be completely unimportant to anyone but you.

Deconstructed living spaces with multi-functions can accommodate all sorts of set-ups. You don’t have to have an ugly desk to have a highly productive one. Screening the area won’t cut acoustic annoyance but it at least marks a boundary. Treat the chair and table as one holistic unit because unless the ergonomics are correct for both and married to your frame there’s Deep Heat on the horizon.

Neptune's Chichester Workstation is perfect for those that just want to shut it all away at the end of the day, €2,340'neptune.com for Irish stockists.

Corner desks (with an equal or smaller return) are a not only a useful choice for a tight position but fan your work around you, within easy reach. Just €120 will get you the seriously industrial Loft Living corner desk in oak from Habitat at Argos, and just €100 buys their Home metal desk, vast and neutral in styling, argos.ie.

Trestle tables are mid-century magic, but should not rock, roll or shake, a common complaint with flimsy takes at wall-mounted occasional desks. Think about your limbs being inserted among those legs, supports and braces; any one can put you out of that vital physical alignment.

POSITION

The position at your desk that you should aim for is as follows:

Facing the screen, centred and straight, your feet flat on the floor, your legs bent at a 45-degree angle, the thighs comfortably parallel to the floor or a fraction lower than your hips, with your backside nestled into our chair.

When your arms are on the desk, they should be parallel to the floor, not reaching up or down or pulling you forward out of position to reach the keyboard.

You won’t be reaching into the desk to work except to reach the odd helper item ranged around the keyboard. You should be able to cross your legs without assaulting the underside of the desk.

The top of the screen should be at eye level or very slightly below it; most adjust. When looking at the height of the desk, keep in mind that your keyboard (I like a deep, rattling keyboard) can raise your working height by a few millimetres. It’s easier to go up than down.

Use a mouse pad with a wrist pad to straighten out your wrist. Can the desk be adjusted? At all? Widthwise, obviously we need enough room to push the screen of the computer back to a comfortable distance. For the sake of your eyes, this will be in the area of one metre, unless you’re using a laptop screen. Add some blue-light protection if it’s pulled in any closer — frankly add blue-light protection to any screen you use.

STORAGE

After putting you in as natural and healthy a position as possible, it’s a matter of the nature of your job. At the right dimensions for the majority of your work, sturdy, and not rattling when you do, the rest is window dressing.

If you are virtually paperless in your habits or just need a couple of stacked paper trays, the width and depth of the desk will matter a lot less. In office furnishings, people only using a table for a couple of hours choose what are termed touch-down desks of 100cm-120cm wide.

That said, a long slick, designer-led desk of up to 160cm looks a lot more interesting and can be suspended over other storage solutions set on the floor, creating a logical relationship and keeping the whole arrangement tight.

Up-top, together with a couple of small storage drawers on one or both ends of the desk surface, you can add some mood interrupters like a plant or piece of artwork.

I like my speakers, modem and the occasional thing I need to fidget with to be slightly hidden behind my monitor. One metre of depth is an accepted minimum for all but a decorative bonheur-du-jour bureau, or compact desk.

Look out for wire and plug management detailing to the desk to keep the spaghetti junction in lane. Not everything is wireless. These would include AC outlets and USB ports for connections and charging.

MATERIAL MATTERS

The standard retail hanger desk is MDF and wood effect, made from compressed wood dust bound with a solvent glue and encased in a plastic veneer with (basically) a digital or printed image of wood grain and figuring.

They are economical and highly practical, but now in hot competition with the honesty of white or coloured resin finishes which do away with the faux timber tradition completely. Don’t be sniffy about what most offices choose to go with, laminated MDF.

Pre-consumer recycled wood fibre and zero urea-formaldehyde water-based adhesive is Earth-friendly. Laminated MDF and particleboard can handsomely withstand scalding coffee cups and all sorts of physical abuse. Going up the table there are engineered laminates. These have fantastic structural stability and often a top veneer that makes them hard to identify as anything but solid wood.

Generally, a quality solid wood desk will always cost that bit more and offers a good heft that will stop it moving under a clattering keyboard. Real wood segues nicely from furnished areas to working areas. We just have a vernacular comfort in timber, it’s gene level.

Style a desk up from an old piece of vintage writing furniture (with serious working dimensions). Metal is touted as fireproof (what are you doing?) but like glass and marble it’s freezing under the wrists. Add an additional warming surface.

TREADMILLS

There’s little argument that standing or at the least a combination of standing/sitting is better than being parked all day at in a chair.

Blood and oxygen travel throughout the body more readily, keeping you more alert and potentially fitter too. Sitting desks can be wildly expensive. Four figures would not be unusual for a motored desk with good stability and branding and a Float could get you on your feet at over €1,400. The best standing desks will allow you to sit, stand, stretch up and even kneel if that’s the way you want to work.

The popular Jarvis desks, from under €500, offer a standing desk converter, with hydraulic operation. The Cooper gives you the most usable surface area possible

The Flying Elephant family of desks are made in Ireland and arrive flat-packed to be assembled in minutes. A foldable solution for sitting and standing along with a shelf unit for storage/monitor stand, €249. Desks and standing adaption solutions from €99, flyingelephant.ie.

cm while still offering a built-in keyboard platform below the main work surface; from €299 in real bamboo or powder-coated MDF, fully.com.

Add a treadmill? You won’t be running, but you can talk, type and scroll your way to some additional fitness at a standing desk. Quality and performance vary wildly, but as an entry point the Workspace Go Light Treadmill is on offer at €349.99 for up to 6km walk speeds, hifi-tower.ie.

Styled on a dressing table conversion, you might be inspired to convert a vintage piece with the right measurements. Oliver Bonas Mescal Desk, €575, Ero Velvet Open Bulb Lamp, €64, oliverbonas.com.