How to Build a Home Office in a Small Bedroom

What you need to know first

You do not need a spare room to work well from home. You need about one square metre, a surface at the right depth, a screen at the right height and a way to make it disappear at six o'clock.

A bedroom office has two jobs that pull against each other: it must be comfortable enough to work at for hours, and easy enough to ignore that you can still sleep. Most small home offices fail for three reasons. The desk is too shallow, so the screen sits too close. The laptop sits flat, so you look down all day. And the work never goes away, so the room stops feeling like home.

Get the position and the setup right, and the furniture can be simple. The same steps work for a corner of a living room.

Step 1: Pick the spot

Walk the room and look for a stretch of wall about 40 inches (1 metre) wide. The usual candidates:

• Beside the window, with the desk at right angles to it. You get daylight from the side without glare on the screen or a silhouette on video calls.
• A corner. OSHA notes that a corner often gives more desk depth than a straight run of desktop, because the screen can sit back into the angle.
• An alcove or the space beside a wardrobe.
• Inside a closet, with the doors closing on it at night.
• The foot of the bed, if the room is long and narrow.

Then run three checks. Is there a socket within reach, so no lead crosses a walkway? Is there a wall behind the screen, not the room, so you are less distracted? And is there room to push the chair back?

If you can, face away from the bed while you work and away from the desk while you sleep. The room size calculator helps you check the spot before you shop.

Step 2: Try it for a week, for free

Before you spend anything, work at the spot for a week with the laptop raised on a stack of books and a lamp borrowed from another room. You will learn what you need. Clear one nearby shelf for work things, so the surface can be emptied at the end of the day.

Step 3: Choose a desk that fits

Measure before you shop. For a laptop and a notebook, a top about 32 to 40 inches (80 to 100 cm) wide and 20 inches (50 cm) deep is workable. If you use a separate monitor, look for about 24 inches (60 cm) of depth, so the screen can sit far enough away.

Options for tight rooms:

• A slim writing desk with a drawer for clearing away at night.
• A wall-mounted fold-down desk that closes flat. This needs drilling, so ask your landlord.
• A ladder or leaning desk that adds shelves above the work surface.
• A folding desk you can put away entirely, which suits two or three days a week at home.

The furniture fit calculator checks a desk against the room and the door.

Step 4: Set it up for your body

Good posture is mostly geometry. Guidance from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) comes down to a few checks:

• Screen: at least 20 inches (50 cm) from your eyes, with 20 to 40 inches the preferred range, and the top of the screen at or slightly below eye level.
• Arms: elbows close to your body and bent at roughly a right angle, wrists straight.
• Back: lower back supported by the chair.
• Legs: feet flat on the floor or on a footrest, thighs roughly level.

A laptop on its own cannot meet the first two at once. A laptop stand, or a stack of books, plus a separate keyboard and mouse fixes that for little money. If you use a monitor, a clamp-on arm lifts it off the desk and frees the surface beneath.

If there is no room for an office chair, choose a dining-style chair with a firm seat and add a lumbar cushion. Stand up and move every half hour or so, whatever you sit on.

Step 5: Get the light right

Use daylight from the side where possible. Add a desk lamp with an adjustable arm for the evenings, aimed at your work and not at the screen. On video calls, light from in front of you is more flattering than light from behind. If the corner is dark overall, see how to brighten a dark apartment without rewiring.

Step 6: Control the cables

Cables are what make a bedroom desk look like an office. Use one surge-protected extension lead, fix it under the desk in a cable tray or with adhesive clips, and run a single lead to the wall. Label the chargers. Before you stick anything to the desk or wall, check what adhesive hooks and strips really hold.

Step 7: Make it disappear

• Clear the desk into a drawer or box at the end of the day.
• Close the laptop and put it out of sight.
• Use a screen, a curtain on a tension rod or the closet doors to hide the desk if seeing it keeps your mind on work.
• Keep work lighting separate from bedside lighting, and switch the first off when you finish. A smart plug can do that on a schedule; see smart plugs for beginners.

Products that can help

Common mistakes to avoid

• Working from the bed. It is hard on your back and blurs the line between work and rest.
• Putting the screen in front of the window. The glare is tiring.
• Buying a large desk "to be safe". In a small bedroom the desk you can walk around beats the desk with more surface.

What to do next

For storage around the desk, see 21 small apartment storage ideas. To make the whole room work harder, read how to make a small apartment feel bigger.