Q&A: What's the best way to use space in my small home office?

What's the best form of storage and separation for a small home office area in an open-plan room?

ANSWER

Generally, a stable desk with drawers, a couple of table trays and a handsome vertically inclined filing cabinet (if you need it) from Bisley or Pierre Henry will do the job, without exploding into the domestic setting. 

Question that pile of paperwork and folders before you try to answer with lumps of storage furniture. 

Keep that footprint under control. 

It’s the digital age — keep your records and reference confined to your screen. 

Consider the essentials of your daily duties: Identify what counts. Don’t stash ephemeral dross out of sight — micromanage and dump what’s no longer needed. 

Pinched for square centimetres? Take your storage and lighting vertical with a wall-mounted lamp, shelves, matching box files and containers to organise the irritating smaller bits n’ bobs. 

Good quality box files contain a large clip which holds the paperwork in place sitting up in book form is a classic answer and cheap in volumes of three or more. 

Laid flat, and open, they act as trays. 

Avoid a scruffy collage of notes on a pinboard. Slide a two-drawer mini-cabinet under the desk. 

Open trays (wire or board, for instance) managed daily, can put manners on your routine. 

Deeper longer desks are sometimes a better option, as they can occasionally accommodate free-standing storage pieces under and over the surface, and then be cleared off. 

Mark off your territory with a rug (a strong aesthetic anchor), and consider a stable folding screen or free-standing office partition if all that yawning space around you is distracting. 

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