How to Choose the Best Desk for Home Office

How to Choose the Best Desk for Home Office

5 min read
Updated: 02.03.2022

It is all about staying productive and healthy. When purchasing a product that is going to be used for many hours and years, it is perfectly normal to overthink. 

At this point, we are here to save the day! 

We did the dirty work to pick the best desks you can use in your home office! We put ourselves in your shoes, spent millions of hours in front of an infinite number of desks, suffered from joint and spine problems.  But in the end, we have selected the crème de la crème just for you.

Let’s make a shortcut here and check the most common desk types and their best products.

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What Should I Look for When Buying a Desk?

Decision-making is a skill anyone can learn with experience. But even the most skillful buyers need (or at least look for) some extra help to make a wiser selection. 

Here are the things you should think about when choosing your desk -from the most important to the least. We simply call it PPWHS (Price Profession Workspace Health and Style).

Hierarchy of Purchasing Decision Making Items

Unfortunately, money is limited for most of us, and we need to spend wisely. So, we never even consider adding pricing and money to our key point list. Nevertheless, your expectations should be balanced with your budget as a start. 

Best Cheap Desk for your Home Office

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The Work Itself

Finding the best desk is highly associated with your job necessities. Imagine you are a financial advisor and must chase the multiple monitor screens all day long. How smart to buy a small desk if you don’t have 5” monitors and a microscope. Even then, you also need space for your microscope.

Essentially, you know your jobs better than anyone. So, prepare your workstation accordingly. 

Condition of the Workspace

In an ideal world, all of us have enough wealth and bellowed jobs. We work whenever we want -mostly a couple of hours a week (forgot to mention only Tuesdays and Wednesdays). 

But in our dystopia, workdays are long, and weeks start on Monday morning. We are going to spend long and painful hours at our desks. So, understanding what affects our buying decisions inside our homes can dramatically reduce the suffering. The questions we should ask: 

– Which room will be your base: a kitchen office, bedroom office or a garden one.

– What is the room layout: spacing for your workstation -a large window seat or a tiny dark corner

– What are the measurements of your work area: maximum physical size you can use

Check out our extensive reviews about How to Choose a Desk Size ⇒⇒⇒

– What are your family situations: your kids -babies, teenagers-, WFH husband/wife, single mom, pets, etc.

So, the desk must be compatible with your living space and personal reality.

Health Concerns

A desk cannot save you from loneliness, anxiety, and stress, but it can help you diminish the risks of physical health issues. The most common problems that occur during long and inactive working hours are:

– spinal pains such as back and neck pains,

– lumbar pains (lower back area),

– leg related complaints like swollen feet, restless leg syndrome, a blood clot (in most severe cases), 

– hand and wrist problems (carpal tunnel syndrome)

This step would be highly crucial if you know you have the above problems or any underlying conditions that may cause these illnesses. So, take your time and try to find an ergonomic desk with enough leg space. 

Styling Expectations

Once you eliminate the desks based on the objective criteria (price → profession → workspace → health), now you have a chance to choose the one that can mirror your inner self. 

Are you a traditional guy who wants a solid wood-based executive desk

Or maybe you are looking for a more technology-oriented standing desk.

Oor foraging a health-focused adjustable ergonomic desk.

In this last step of our PPWHS ladder, you are free to choose what suits you best.

Do You Really Need to Buy a Desk for Your Home Office

Our consumption culture forces us to buy more products regardless of our actual needs. Eventually, who doesn’t want new and shiny toys? The very first question before making any buying decision should be, “do I need a [whatever you want to buy].?”

It does sound like common sense, but if you look at your last credit card statement, you may see some peculiar spending. When these spending start to accumulate, you might experience some sort of financial difficulty, like most of the fellow Americans.

So, protecting your finances is the priority. Then, you may start thinking about buying a nice, self-reflecting desk for your home workstation. 

In the first place, look for your own treasures. If you have a desk with unsteady legs, you can try to fix it. Or you can ask your friends and neighbors if they have a spare desk.

But if you have a well-defined need that can’t be satisfied by cheap solutions, congrats, you are ready to fill up your shopping bag. 

Once you feel certain about shopping, follow our guidance and check our PPWHS pyramid before making your decision.

How to Setup a Desk – Essential Parts and Extras

A standard desk consists of two main parts, the top area and the legs (or the frame more general). 

The most common materials used to manufacture the desktop are wood (maple, cherry, walnut, oak, ash), glass, plastic, and metal (carbon or stainless steel, aluminum, iron). On the other hand, for the frame, most desk producers rely on metal materials just to ensure strength and visual attractiveness.

However, modern desks can have more parts such as 

  • storage units (drawers, hutch, shelves), 
  • keyboard tray, 
  • cable management unit, 
  • wheels, 
  • height adjustment mechanism, 
  • rotation mechanism,
  • non-slip mat,
  • child protection kit

An Advanced Electric Desk

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Regular desk shopping required an assembly operation on the end-user side cause the parts are delivered unmounted. Most of us hate to get our hands dirty but otherwise distributing the assembled desks will be a costly logistic operations.

And we don’t like extra costs, right? We like cheap stuff (not cheap but let’s say not illogically expensive).

So prepare yourself for some instruction reading and labor-intensive work (or you can pay extra for the job). 

What are the Complements of Home Office Desks

The desk is undoubtedly one of the main parts of a modern home office space. But it is not enough when we even think of the basic setup. Let’s get into the safest way; assume you just need a desk and a … 

Yes, you are right. A chair!

One desk, one chair, one laptop. And you are good to go. 

So, a charming and coherent chair is not just an addition to your desk. Simply, it is the other prerequisite of setting up your home office.

The Best Chair For Your Home Office

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Check out our extensive reviews about home office chairs ⇒⇒⇒

Also, a protective and non-slippery desk mat is a must if you plan to use your desk regularly. Try to use an eco-friendly and durable model to make sure your productive workstation has all you need.

The Best Desk Mat for Home Office Desk

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Final Thoughts

A solid desk is crucial to creating an office environment and staying focused and motivated when working from home. Although choosing the best of anything is highly subjective, you can think of  your individual condition and get help from our PPWHS pyramid to make the most accurate judgment. 

Every purchase holds some risks. So good luck with your hunt!

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