A workspace inside a home
Most of the desks in this collection end up in a room that is not only an office. They stand in a corner of a bedroom, along the wall of a spare room, or at the end of a living room where the household works three days a week. That double duty sets the requirement: the furniture has to be steady enough for a full working day and quiet enough that the room still reads as part of a house in the evening. The three shelves below follow the order a workspace is built in, surface first, then storage, then the chair that carries the hours.
Desks
The surface decides the room. A writing desk with a shallow footprint suits a corridor or a bedroom wall and is enough for a laptop, a notebook and a lamp. An L-shaped desk turns a corner into a workstation with a second surface for paper, a printer or a monitor arm, and it is the better answer where two screens are in use. Mid-century designs with tapered legs and a tempered glass top keep a small room visually open. The two numbers to settle before ordering are the working height, which should let the forearms rest level, and the knee clearance under the apron, which is where a handsome desk most often fails.
Christopher Knight Home Somi Home Office Writing
Christopher Knight Home Somi Home Office Writing
Christopher Knight Home Hanny Desk
Camila Mid-Century Tempered Glass Desk
Shelves
Storage is what keeps a home office from spilling into the room around it. The shelf holds faux-wood bookcases, mid-century open units and four-layer designs that suit a narrow wall. Open shelving is easier to live with than closed cupboards in a shared room, because it forces a household to keep only what it uses, but it also puts everything on display, so one closed drawer somewhere in the room is worth planning for. Anything above chest height should be fixed to the wall, and the heavy material belongs on the lowest shelf, where it will not turn a tall unit into a lever.
Christopher Knight Home Mia Cabinet
Christopher Knight Home Garen Modern 4 Shelf
Christopher Knight Home Ebany 4 Tier Bookshelf
Christopher Knight Home Garen Modern 4 Shelf
Office Seating
The chair is the item that is felt every day and noticed only when it is wrong. This shelf carries desk chairs in fabric and in faux leather, some on castors with a gas lift, others as fixed mid-century chairs on wooden legs. A chair on castors is the right choice where somebody works a full day, because the height can be matched to the desk and the back to the spine. A fixed chair is the better one where the desk is used for an hour at a time and the room has to look like a room rather than an office. Whichever is chosen, the seat depth should leave two fingers between the front edge and the back of the knee.
Christopher Knight Home Coulee Office Chair, Dark
Christopher Knight Home Unami 90° Swivel Dining
Evelyn Fabric Armchair
Alisa Mid-Century Chair
Putting the workspace together
Three details finish the job once the furniture has arrived. Daylight should reach the desk from the side rather than from the front or from directly behind, so that neither the screen nor the eyes are fighting it. Cables should be gathered at one leg and dropped in a single run, because a tangle under a desk is what makes a workspace feel temporary. And the room needs one surface that stays clear at the end of the day. Christopher Knight Home furniture is not sold as a matched office suite, but keeping the desk and the shelving within one wood tone gives the same effect for less money.
Office Furniture
Christopher Knight Home — premium living room, bedroom, dining, outdoor and office furniture for a home that feels finished.