Home Office Setup: 12 Practical Steps for a Space You Will Actually Use

A good home office setup is not about buying the most expensive desk or copying a photo you saw online. It comes down to a few plain things: a desk that fits the room, a chair you can sit in for hours, a screen at the right height, decent light, and somewhere to put the paper and cables so they stop taking over. Get those right and the room works. Get them wrong and you end up working from the sofa again within a month.

We sell desks, office chairs, filing cabinets, shelving and printer stands at Easy Life Markets, and most of the questions we get from customers are the same ones. Will this desk fit in my corner? Is a mesh chair better than a padded one? Do I need a standing desk? How much room do I leave behind the chair? This guide answers those questions in the order you will actually face them, with links to the furniture we stock so you can see real sizes as you plan.

There are twelve steps below. You do not have to do all of them at once. Read through, measure your room, and buy in the order that fixes your biggest problem first.

What This Guide Covers

• Step 1: Pick the right spot in your home
• Step 2: Measure before you buy anything
• Step 3: Choose the desk shape that suits the room
• Step 4: Spend properly on the chair
• Step 5: Set the heights for your body
• Step 6: Get the screen and laptop right
• Step 7: Sort out the lighting
• Step 8: Plan storage for paper, books and the printer
• Step 9: Deal with cables and power
• Step 10: Make a small room or a corner work
• Step 11: Add a second place to sit
• Step 12: Keep it working once it is built

Step 1: Pick the Right Spot for Your Home Office Setup

Before you look at a single desk, decide where your home office setup is going to live. People skip this and buy furniture first, then try to make the room fit around it. It rarely goes well.

The best spot for a home office setup is the one you will use every day without having to set anything up. A spare bedroom is ideal if you have one, because you can close the door at the end of the day and the work stays there. If you do not have a spare room, look for a corner of the bedroom, the end of a living room, a wide landing, or the space under the stairs. Plenty of good offices live under a staircase. The fluted desk in the photo above is set up in exactly that kind of space.

When you are choosing between two spots, check these things:

• Daylight. Natural light is pleasant to work in. You want the window to your side, not directly behind your screen and not directly behind you. More on this in step 7.
• Sockets. Count them. A computer, a monitor, a lamp, a phone charger and a printer add up fast. A spot with a double socket nearby saves a lot of extension leads.
• Noise. If you take calls, avoid the wall shared with the washing machine, the television or the children's room.
• Traffic. A desk in a hallway or next to the kitchen door gets interrupted all day. A quiet corner beats a big space in a busy room.
• Heat. Radiators, heaters and sunny windows make a small room uncomfortable in the afternoon. Electronics do not like it either.

If you share the room with someone else, think about sight lines too. Facing a wall is better for concentration than facing the bed or the sofa, and it keeps the back of your screen out of everyone's view.

Step 2: Measure Before You Buy Anything

This is the step in any home office setup that saves the most money. A tape measure and ten minutes will tell you which desks will fit and which ones will not, and it is a lot easier than sending back a heavy flat-pack box.

Measure and write down:

• The length of each wall you might use, from corner to corner or to the nearest obstacle.
• Where the window, door, radiator and sockets are along that wall.
• How far the door swings into the room.
• The height under any sloping ceiling, shelf or window sill.
• The depth of the skirting board, because it pushes furniture away from the wall.

Then work out the space you need around the desk, not just the desk itself. For a typical home office setup, these are the clearances we use when we help customers plan:

Mark the footprint on the floor with masking tape before you order. Sit where the chair would go. Open the door. Walk past it. It sounds fussy, but it shows you straight away whether a 160 cm desk will crowd the room or whether a compact one will feel lost.

One more measurement people forget: the way in. Flat-pack boxes for long desks and tall bookcases can be close to two metres long. Check that they will turn the corner at the top of the stairs.

Step 3: Choose the Desk Shape That Suits the Room

With measurements in hand, choosing the desk for your home office setup gets much easier. There are four shapes worth knowing about, and each one suits a different kind of room and a different kind of work.

Straight desks

The simplest option. A straight desk goes against one wall, is easy to move, and suits laptop work, writing and a single monitor. If you are short of space or plan to move house soon, start here.

Corner desks

A corner is usually dead space in a room. A corner desk uses it. Our small corner desk is about 79 cm along each wall and 73 cm high, with a fan-shaped top, two open shelves under one side, and a clipped back corner that leaves a gap for cables. It comes in maple cherry, pink or warm white, with or without a matching chair. It is a laptop and notebook desk rather than a two-monitor workstation, and it suits a bedroom or a studio flat very well.

L-shaped desks

An L-shaped desk gives you two work surfaces at right angles. You keep the screen and keyboard in front of you and put the printer, papers or a second laptop on the other wing, within reach but out of the way. For anyone who works with paper and a computer at the same time, this is the most practical shape for a home office setup.

We sell three L-shaped desks, and they are quite different from each other:

• The L shaped computer desk is the compact one. It measures 120 × 50 × 75.5 cm, has a black top on a black steel frame with cross braces, and a two-tier shelf unit that you can fit on the left or the right. Two monitors fit on it, as the photos show. It is a small desk for a small room.
• The L shaped desk with drawers is a full piece of furniture. The main wing is about 150 cm long, with white fluted fronts, a dark wood-grain top, a file drawer, a cupboard, a monitor stand and a built-in charging station. Plug type and voltage for the charging station are not stated by the supplier, so contact us before ordering and we will check it suits your mains supply.
• The L shaped standing desk is the big one, covered next.

Standing desks

A sit-stand desk lets you change position through the day. The useful part is the change, not the standing itself. Standing all day is no better for you than sitting all day. An electric frame makes the switch quick enough that you actually do it.

Our electric L shaped standing desk has a 160 × 140 cm top that moves between 72.5 and 115 cm high at the press of a button, with a raised monitor shelf holding four shallow drawers. The supplier rates it at 200 lb (90 kg) in total. Like the charging desk, the plug and voltage are not stated, so ask us before you order.

How to choose between them

In any home office setup, depth matters as much as length. A 50 cm deep top is fine for a laptop or a slim monitor. If you want a large monitor at a comfortable distance and a keyboard in front of it, a deeper top or a monitor arm helps a lot. You can browse every desk and chair we carry in our office furniture collection.

Step 4: Spend Properly on the Chair in Your Home Office Setup

If your home office setup budget only stretches to one good piece of furniture, make it the chair. You touch the desk with your forearms. You sit in the chair with your whole body for six or eight hours. A cheap desk is an annoyance. A bad chair is sore shoulders and a stiff lower back by Thursday.

What to look for in any office chair:

• Seat height adjustment. A gas lift so you can get your feet flat on the floor and your forearms level with the desk.
• Back support. The backrest should meet your lower back when you sit all the way back. A lumbar cushion helps if it does not.
• Armrests that do not get in the way. Arms that are too high push your shoulders up. Arms that hit the desk edge stop you pulling in close. Flip-up arms solve both.
• A five-star base on castors. Stable, and easy to move between the desk and a filing cabinet.
• A seat you fit. Check the seat width and the overall height against your own size where the figures are given.

Mesh or padded?

This is the question we hear most. A mesh back lets air through, so it stays cooler in a warm room and over a long day. A padded back feels softer when you first sit down and suits people who like to lean back and recline. Neither is better for everyone. If your room gets warm, or you tend to sit upright and type, mesh is usually the better choice. If you read, take long calls and like to lean back, padded is often more comfortable.

From our range:

• The mesh task chair has a white frame, a black mesh back, a padded seat and arms that flip up so the chair slides right under the desk. It comes in eight configurations that differ in base, seat pad and whether the back tilts. It is a light, neat chair for a desk or a meeting table.
• The mesh office chair with headrest adds a headrest, a reclining back and two pillows, in six frame and mesh colours. A better pick if you want to lean back between tasks.
• The reclining office chair is a thickly padded executive chair. The main versions have a back that tilts well past upright, a pull-out footrest and massage points in the backrest.
• The racing style office chair is a high-back swivel chair with a curved back, about 110 to 120 cm tall with a 50 cm wide seat, in black, blue or yellow.

Gaming chairs at a work desk

Plenty of people use one chair for work in the day and games in the evening, and a gaming chair can sit perfectly well in a home office setup. Racing-style gaming chairs have high backs, headrest pillows and lumbar cushions, and many recline. The gaming chair with footrest has a pull-out leg rest under the seat and comes in six colour combinations. The massage gaming chair has a lumbar pillow powered by USB. The reclining gaming chair comes in six colours with a choice of bases and footrest options.

The one thing to watch with gaming chairs is the bucket seat. The raised side bolsters suit some people and annoy others, especially if you sit cross-legged or shift around a lot. If you have the chance, sit in one like it before you decide. See the full range in our chairs collection and the gaming collection.

Step 5: Set the Heights for Your Body

This is where a home office setup goes from fine to comfortable, and it costs nothing. The furniture can be perfect and still hurt you if the heights are wrong. Ergonomics is simply the study of fitting the work to the person instead of the other way round, and the basics are easy to apply.

Do it in this order, because each step depends on the one before:

1. Chair first. Raise or lower the seat until your feet rest flat on the floor and your thighs are roughly level. Your knees should be at about a right angle.
2. Back. Sit all the way back so the backrest supports your lower back. If there is a gap, use a lumbar cushion or a small rolled towel.
3. Desk. With your shoulders relaxed and your elbows bent at about a right angle, your forearms should rest level on the desk or keyboard. Most fixed desks are around 72 to 76 cm high, which suits a lot of people but not everyone.
4. If the desk is too high, raise the chair until your arms are right, then put a footrest under your feet so they are still supported.
5. If the desk is too low, raise it on furniture risers or look at a height-adjustable desk.
6. Screen last. Covered in the next step.

For a standing desk, the same rule applies at the standing height. Raise the top until your elbows sit at about a right angle with your hands on the keyboard. Start with short spells of standing and build up. A cushioned mat helps a lot on a hard floor.

If you want to go further, the computer workstation guidance from OSHA walks through posture, monitor position and keyboard placement in more detail. It is written for workplaces, but everything in it applies at home.

Step 6: Get the Screen and Laptop Right

Neck ache from a home office setup nearly always comes from the screen. Either it is too low, which is the classic laptop problem, or it is off to one side and you have been twisting for hours without noticing.

The rules for a monitor are simple:

• Put it directly in front of you, in line with the keyboard.
• Set the top of the screen at or just below eye level.
• Sit about an arm's length away. Larger screens can sit a little further back.
• Tilt it back slightly so you look at it straight on.
• With two monitors you use equally, put the join in the middle. If one is your main screen, put that one in front and the second to the side.

A laptop on its own is a compromise. The screen is too low when the keyboard is in the right place, and the keyboard is too high when the screen is right. If you work on a laptop every day, raise it to eye level on a stand or a stack of books and use a separate keyboard and mouse. It is the cheapest upgrade you can make to any home office setup, and the difference shows within a week.

Raised monitor shelves are worth a look here. The electric standing desk and the fluted desk both have one built in. A shelf lifts the screen and leaves space underneath for a keyboard to slide away or for papers. Check the depth of your monitor's foot against the shelf before you rely on it.

Step 7: Sort Out the Lighting

Lighting is the part of a home office setup that people notice last and complain about most. A screen in the wrong place against a window gives you glare in the morning and a dark, squinting afternoon.

Some plain rules:

• Window to the side. Put the desk so the window is to your left or right. A window behind the screen makes you look into bright light. A window behind you reflects off the screen.
• Blinds or a light curtain. Even a well-placed window needs softening on a sunny day.
• A desk lamp. Ceiling lights alone throw shadows over your work. A lamp to the side of the desk, opposite your writing hand, lights paper without lighting the screen.
• Avoid working in the dark. A bright screen in a dark room tires your eyes quickly. Keep some light on in the room in the evening.
• Warm light for the evening. A warmer bulb in the room lamp is easier to live with after dark than cold white light.

Light colours help too. A pale desktop and pale walls bounce light around a small room. A dark desk looks smart but shows dust and makes a dim corner feel dimmer.

Step 8: Plan Storage for Paper, Books and the Printer

Every home office setup slowly fills with paper. Bills, contracts, manuals, school letters, receipts. Without a place to put them, they end up in piles on the desk, and a desk covered in piles is a desk you stop using. Plan storage as part of your home office setup from the start, not after the mess has arrived.

Filing cabinets for paperwork

A filing cabinet does most of the storage work in a home office setup. It keeps paper upright, in order and out of sight, and a lockable one keeps personal records private. There are two things to decide: how tall, and how the locks work.

• A 3 drawer filing cabinet stands about desk height, so the top doubles as a shelf for a printer or trays. Ours is black metal, 14.65 × 17.71 × 40.5 inches, with full-extension drawers on ball-bearing slides, one lock, and an interlock that lets only one drawer open at a time so the cabinet does not tip.
• A 4 drawer file cabinet stores more on the same patch of floor. Ours is white metal, about 38 × 45 cm in footprint and around 54 inches tall, with a separate lock on every drawer. The drawers can be opened together, so we strongly suggest fixing it to the wall.

Before you fill any filing cabinet, set the hanging rails for the paper size you use, load the bottom drawer first, and keep the heaviest files low.

Shelves for books and display

Open shelving gives you somewhere for books, binders, boxes and a plant or two, and it makes a work room look like a room rather than a cupboard. The 5 tier bookcase we sell is about 180 cm wide, 26 cm deep and 180 cm high, with black shelves on a black steel frame. The supplier rates each shelf at 80 lb. At 26 cm deep it projects very little into the room, which is useful behind a desk or along a narrow wall. It needs fixing to the wall before you load it.

For heavier storage such as archive boxes, spare stock or equipment, a steel shelving unit is often more practical than a bookcase. You will find those in our storage and shelving collection.

A home for the printer

A printer takes up a good part of the desk and is used a few times a day at most. Moving it off the desk gives you back space you will use every hour. Our mobile printer stand is about 40 cm wide and 60 cm high on four castors, two of which lock. It has an open shelf for paper, a drawer for cartridges and a cupboard underneath. The supplier rates it at 55.1 lb, which covers most home printers. It is not designed for hanging files, so pair it with a filing cabinet if you need both.

A good rule for storage in any home office setup: the things you use every day go within arm's reach of the chair, the things you use every week go in the room, and everything else goes somewhere else in the house. Our storage and organization collection has more options for the second and third groups.

Step 9: Deal with Cables and Power

Cables are the reason so many desks look messy even when everything else is tidy. A monitor, a laptop charger, a lamp, a phone charger, speakers, a printer and a router can easily mean ten leads under one desk. Deal with them on day one of your home office setup, while the desk is still empty.

• Use one good power strip. Fix it to the back of the desk or the wall, off the floor, so you are not kicking it and so you can switch everything off at once.
• Run cables down one leg. Gather them with ties or a fabric sleeve and run them down a single back leg to the floor.
• Use the gaps the desk gives you. Some desks have a cable gap built in. The small corner desk has a clipped back corner for exactly this.
• Leave slack on a standing desk. Every cable needs enough length for the desk at its highest setting. A tight lead will pull a monitor or laptop off a rising desk.
• Label the plugs. A strip of tape on each plug saves crawling under the desk to work out which one is the printer.
• Keep the charging spot to one place. A built-in charging station, like the one on our fluted L shaped desk, or a small tray with a multi-port charger, stops phones and earbuds spreading across the desk.

Do not overload extension leads, especially with heaters, kettles or anything that gets hot. Plug electric desks directly into a wall socket where you can. If you are unsure about the power rating of anything you have bought from us, get in touch and we will check what the supplier states.

Step 10: Make a Small Room or a Corner Work

Most people do not have a spare room for an office. They have a corner of the bedroom, the end of the dining table, or the space under the stairs. A small home office setup can work just as well as a big one if you are strict about what goes in it.

In a bedroom

The hardest thing about a bedroom office is switching off at night when the desk is a metre from the bed. A few things help. Face the desk to the wall so you are not looking at the bed while you work, and the work is not in view when you are in bed. Pick a desk that looks like furniture rather than office equipment. Put the laptop away in a drawer or on a shelf at the end of the day. The small corner desk works well here because it uses a corner the bed was never going to reach, and its warm white or pink finishes sit comfortably in a bedroom. Our bedroom collection has more pieces that suit a shared space.

In a living room

For a home office setup in a living room, the challenge is the opposite. The room is busy, there is a television, and people come and go. Put the desk at the quietest end, away from the main walkway, and use a bookcase or shelving unit to frame it. An open bookcase like our 5 tier bookcase lets light through but still marks out the work area. See our living room collection for other options.

Under the stairs or on a landing

These spaces are often narrow and oddly shaped, which is why they get wasted. Measure the height at the lowest point where your head will be when you sit. A desk with built-in storage saves floor space you do not have, and good lighting matters more here than anywhere because these spots rarely have a window.

Small-space rules that always help

• Go up, not out. Wall shelves and tall, narrow storage use space that is otherwise empty.
• Pick pale finishes. They make a small corner feel larger.
• Choose furniture on legs or with an open base. Seeing the floor under it makes the room feel less crowded.
• Use a chair that tucks in. Flip-up arms, like those on our mesh task chair, let the chair slide fully under the desk when you are done.
• Put things on castors. A rolling printer stand can live under the desk and come out when you need it.

Step 11: Add a Second Place to Sit

This one surprises people. If you have the space, a second seat in the room, away from the desk, makes a real difference to a long working day. Reading a long document, taking a phone call or thinking through a problem is often easier somewhere other than in front of the screen. It also gets you up out of the desk chair, which is good for you.

It does not need to be big, and it does not have to look like part of the home office setup at all. A comfortable chair, a small side table for a cup and a lamp is enough. A swivel accent chair fits in a corner, and a round tripod side table with a 35 cm top and a height of 42 cm takes up almost no floor space. If you like a more relaxed corner, a mid century modern accent chair is another option. Browse our tables collection for more side tables.

Step 12: Keep Your Home Office Setup Working Once It Is Built

A home office setup is never finished on the day you build it. Your work changes, you get new equipment, and the paper piles come back. A little maintenance keeps it working.

• Re-tighten the furniture. Flat-pack desks, shelves and chairs settle in the first few weeks. Go round with the right key or screwdriver after a month.
• Clear the desk each evening. Two minutes at the end of the day. Papers in the tray or the drawer, cups back to the kitchen, laptop closed.
• Do a monthly paper sort. File what you need, recycle what you do not, shred anything with personal details.
• Check your posture now and then. If your neck or back aches, go back to step 5 and check the heights again. They drift as cushions compress and you move things around.
• Clean the chair. Vacuum mesh with a soft brush. Wipe frames with a damp cloth. Pull hair and fluff out of the castors when they start to drag.
• Look after the floor. Hard castors can mark wood and laminate. A chair mat protects the floor and makes the chair roll more easily on carpet.

What to Buy First on a Budget

Not everyone can buy everything at once, and you do not need to. If you are building a home office setup in stages, this is the order we would suggest, based on what makes the biggest difference to how you feel at the end of the day:

1. A proper chair. Adjustable height and good back support. This affects your body more than anything else in the room.
2. A desk that fits the space. Even a small one, as long as it is the right height and deep enough for your screen.
3. A way to raise your screen. A monitor, or a laptop stand with a separate keyboard and mouse.
4. A desk lamp. Cheap and an immediate improvement.
5. Storage. A filing cabinet or a shelf, once you can see what kind of clutter you actually have.
6. The extras. A printer stand, a second seat, a standing desk if you find you need one.

Buying in this order also means you learn how you use the space before you spend money on the bigger pieces. Plenty of people discover after a month that they need more paper storage and less desk, or the other way round.

Common Mistakes We See

After answering a lot of questions from customers setting up their first home office, these are the home office setup mistakes that come up again and again:

• Buying the desk before measuring the room. Then finding the door will not open or the chair hits the bed.
• Choosing a chair on looks alone. A chair that looks great in a photo can still be the wrong size for you. Check the seat width and height where they are given, and ask us if they are not.
• Working from a laptop at the kitchen table for months. It feels temporary, so people put up with it. Then the neck ache arrives.
• Putting the screen in front of a window. Bright background, dark screen, sore eyes.
• Ignoring wall fixings. Tall bookcases and filing cabinets come with anti-tip fixings for a reason. Use them, especially in a home with children.
• Not leaving room for drawers. A filing cabinet jammed against a bed is a filing cabinet you cannot open.
• Too much on the desk. If your printer, a pile of post, three mugs and a plant all live on the desk, there is no room left to work.

Home Office Setup Checklist

Use this list once your furniture is in place. If you can tick everything, your home office setup is in good shape.

• Desk in a quiet spot, with the window to the side.
• At least 90 cm behind the desk for the chair.
• Chair height set so your feet are flat and your thighs are level.
• Lower back supported by the backrest or a cushion.
• Forearms level with the desk, shoulders relaxed.
• Top of the screen at or just below eye level, about an arm's length away.
• Laptop raised, with a separate keyboard and mouse.
• Desk lamp to the side, plus some room light in the evening.
• Cables gathered, power strip off the floor.
• Somewhere for paper: a filing cabinet, a drawer or a tray.
• Tall furniture fixed to the wall.
• Printer off the desk if it takes up working space.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much space do I need for a home office setup?
Less than most people think. A corner of about 80 × 80 cm is enough for a laptop desk like our small corner desk, plus about 90 cm behind it for the chair. A full L-shaped desk with two monitors needs a corner of roughly 150 × 145 cm or more, depending on the model.

Is an L-shaped desk worth it?
If your home office setup involves paper and a screen at the same time, or a printer and two monitors, yes. The second wing keeps everything within reach without crowding the space in front of you. If you only use a laptop, a straight or corner desk is usually enough.

Do I need a standing desk?
No home office setup needs one, but many people like being able to change position through the day. If you spend long hours at a screen and get stiff, a sit-stand desk is worth considering. If you do buy one, plan to alternate between sitting and standing rather than standing all day.

Which is better for long hours, a mesh chair or a padded chair?
It depends on you and your room. Mesh stays cooler and suits upright typing. Padded chairs feel softer and suit people who like to recline. Adjustable height and good lower-back support matter more than the material.

Can I use a gaming chair for office work?
Yes. Many people do. Make sure the height adjusts to suit your desk and that the bucket seat sides do not dig in. A footrest is a nice extra for breaks, but not something to use while you type.

How do I stop a small home office from feeling cramped?
Use the walls for storage, pick pale finishes, choose furniture you can see under, and keep the desk clear. A chair that tucks fully under the desk makes a big difference in a small room.

Should I fix my bookcase or filing cabinet to the wall?
Yes. Tall, narrow furniture can tip forward when drawers are open or shelves are loaded at the top. Use the anti-tip fixing, load heavy items low, and open one drawer at a time.

Do you ship your office furniture worldwide?
Delivery options depend on the product and your location. The details for each product are shown at checkout, and our shipping policy explains how it works. Our FAQ page covers other common questions.

Shop Your Home Office Setup at Easy Life Markets

Everything mentioned in this guide is something we sell, and each product page shows the full specifications, the options, the current price and availability. If a size or detail you need is not listed, ask us before you order and we will check what the supplier states. Please read our return and refund policy before buying large items.

• Desks: small corner desk, L shaped computer desk, L shaped desk with drawers, L shaped standing desk
• Office chairs: mesh task chair, mesh office chair, reclining office chair, racing style office chair
• Gaming chairs: gaming chair with footrest, massage gaming chair, reclining gaming chair
• Storage: 3 drawer filing cabinet, 4 drawer file cabinet, 5 tier bookcase, mobile printer stand
• Collections: office furniture, chairs, storage and organization, all furniture

Start with the chair, measure twice, and build the rest around how you actually work. A good home office setup does not need to be big or expensive. It needs to fit you.