Secretary Desk From West Elm

In small apartments, we don't often have the luxury of an extra room for an office. Bill paying, checkbook balancing and written correspondence usually take place on the nearest available table. Often that's the one that's also used for dining. When meal time comes, the papers are pushed to the side or, worse, meals take place in front of the tv. We crave a desk.

This modern Framed Secretary Desk from West Elm might help solve the desk issue. We can easily see this one, with its small footprint and streamlined profile, nestling comfortably into a corner of the living room. We think it would work with many types of décor and in many different rooms. It'd even make a great bar! Two, pushed back to back, would give a couple separate, but equal, desk spaces. And, of course, our favorite aspect of secretary desks is that, when work is done, they close right up. Out of sight and, for the moment, out of mind.

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Comments (17)

I like it when it's open but i think it looks awful and top heavy when it's closed. There are better options out there.

It's a little too "shelving unit" for my taste. I prefer a nice, simple, small tabletop desk.

I've been trying to find a desk that folds up into itself and this one is just not cutting it for me. I agree that it looks way too top heavy when closed up. And when it's open it looks too high to work on comfortably. Maybe that's just a photo thing, but ergonomically it looks like a nightmare. Crate and Barrel has a couple cute solutions, but the one I can afford is too cheap feeling.

I really love this. It looks very modern to me and solves the problem of too much "desk crap" in an otherwise normal living room, soemthing we saw too much of in past Smallest Coolest contests.

I love the scale and proportion, and also see it functioning as a bar in a transition space between dining and living rooms. If you are lucky enough to have such a thing!

I'd tuck a rolling ottoman underneath instead, though.

Laura--

Help us find some of those "better options out there" please.

Patrick - I like your idea of the ottoman under it. That would help with the proportion when it's closed up.

Crate & Barrel offer several fold up office options but they do not hide the monitor if you have a desktop computer. West Elm also has a "bottom half" office option.
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/office-desks-armoires/furniture/2

Ballard Designs has several "Home Office Armoires"
http://www.ballarddesigns.com/Furniture/Armoires/Computer-Armoires/c/1665?path=1%2C2%2C1443%2C1470%2C1665

Room and Board
http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/category.do?method=get&id=40

And finally.. my poor, just out of college budget office armoire from Walmart for under $100.00.
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=6051640

The modern secretary is hard to find though so I'll give West ELm credit for that. I still think the design is too top heavy though. I don't like the flat white front when it's closed.

Very few of those, as you state, are modern, and even fewer you cite are scaled for smaller spaces.

Actually, I think those half office armoire things from crate and barrel are perfect for small spaces. They can double as a console or buffet or any number of things in a small space.

As a dweller of a very small space myself, an all in one office armoire is perfect for a small space because it basically puts everything you'd have in a separate room into one piece of furniture. I have the Walmart one and everyone always comments on how much they love it and are suprised by how much I can fit in there and even more suprised that it came from Walmart!

Modern is harder to find.. I'm sorry but I still don't like the West Elm piece. I want to.. I really do..

That Walmart thing looks junky - and not everyone has a desktop computer, so the internal partitions wouldn't make sense.

I think that for the price and style, the WestElm item would work fairly well - However if one has space for a sofa table in their room arrangement, then one has room for a writing desk behind the sofa instead.

bepsf.. I posted several options that are only the bottom half of the armoire so it would work perfectly for a laptop and printer/ file storage and can double as a console or buffet.

The idea is to store all the office stuff (not just a work surface). It's nice to be able to hide the printer and files and have a pull out keyboard tray to plug your laptop into.

Patrick (the other one):
A good bit of the room and board stuff Laura posted has a midcentury feel. And even cursory investigation of her link reveals that they come in a wide variety of sizes, some of which *are* suited to small spaces (and are, in fact, the same dimensions as the one from West Elm pictured originally). Best of all? Some of them are fully customizable.

Come on now. I understand not liking the look of the West Elm desk if it doesn't suit your taste, but the links to comparable desks are hardly comparable. I followed those links only to see either cheap flimsy junk, or hulking 1980s looking bulk at up to 3 times the size and price of the West Elm desk.

I'm not saying the West Elm is perfect. I'd like it in Black and silver, personally. But I have yet to see anything modern that compares.

I searched for a contemporary desk armoire for my bedroom/home office for a VERY long time before I finally broke down, designed my own, and had it built. I am very glad I did as nothing is more satisfying than closing the doors on the chaos of your workday, especially when all that clutter and paperwork is in your bedroom.

Most mainstream furniture retailers are reluctant to offer "outside-the-box" solutions for the home as most consumers gravitate toward very traditional and familiar choices. I am glad to see West Elm is at least giving it a shot. It takes a certain leap of faith to believe that consumers will "catch on" to the benefits of something different before simple economics require that the piece be otherwise discontinued.

when oh when will West Elm stop making everything in "chocolate."

Stunningly beautiful. Classically modern. Formal. Elegant. I love it.

I think the discomfort with this piece I read here is built in with the modern movement itself, rather than attributable to this particular implementation of it.