apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

optical illusion? is the pipe in front of or behind the chair?
love the space.

heather leaf, I can't tell either... I stared at it for a whole minute before giving up. I like that space too, but unfortunately my "office" is definitely not paperless. :( It would look cluttered in seconds.

I agree that desk set-ups like this are beautiful.. however, they're not always that great in practice. Case in point, I used to work in a university laboratory in Florida. They had a long row of "desks" set up in front of a wall of windows on the fourth floor of the building. When I first saw it, I honestly thought it was the most beautiful lab I'd ever seen!

However, my opinion changed in August when the heat and Florida sun rays made sitting in front of a computer in front of a window nearly unbearable. Still... if I could have a home set up like this I probably would. But for those of us who can't manage this, take comfort in the knowledge that these offices are often rather sweaty workplaces ;)

So inspiring!

I love this. I think my number one design rule is if you are going to have a home office, place your desk in front of a window. It helps so much with inspiration to be able to see what is happening in the world around you. This is a really fun and interesting play on that.

One thing that troubles me about all these stylish "home offices" is that they are completely unrealistic for actual home offices. For one thing, you could not do your work sitting on that stool all day. It'd get uncomfortable really fast. Also, a lot of things are missing from this picture which most folks would want to use including back-up media or an external drive for backing up. I guess people could use on-line back-up services to store their data, but I wouldn't trust them for really sensitive information (nor should anyone else).

These cute little set-ups seem mainly geared toward looking nice and not actual work. It is possible to have a desk which isn't overly cluttered but also has more than a few sparse elements. I'd be far more interested in shots of those than contrived set-ups designed mainly to look good.

The message seems to be the only way to have a stylish set-up is to dispense with everything possible (printer, drives, desktop computer (as it frees you from a display), speakers, router, etc.) and to hide whatever you can't get rid of.

A lot of the other stuff we need at our desk (printer, file cabinet) could go underneath the desk. And, if you use file cabinets, etc, with wheels on them, you could move the files away when you want to sit at the desk. As for the stool, there are plenty of office chairs which would work perfectly. This design is great because there is so little window blocked. My house has floor to ceiling windows, which I love, but I hate blocking them even a little bit, so furniture placement is difficult.

"These cute little set-ups seem mainly geared toward looking nice and not actual work."

I think it depends on the 'work'. Would it be great if I was working from home a lot or on big projects with lots of paperwork? Not for me, no. But I do think it would work well for brief spurts of work like paying bills, writing letters, sending emails, etc., which is what I use my home 'office' for 99% of the time. If your home office needs are light and/or sporadic, this would seem to be a good use of space.

However, I will echo the sentiments of the commentor above who remarked on how hot it can get when the sun is beating through a window in August. Then again, you have a reason to buy a cool retro-looking fan for the desk. :)

it looks cute, if somewhat untenable for most purposes.

AT, would you pretty please do a round up of desks/spaces that artfully house a computer, an external hard drive, a printer, a flat bed scanner, charging/docking stations for cameras and music players, speakers, paperwork, a filing system, extraneous cords not being used, tape, stapler, hole punch, scissors, pens, pencils, markers, and potentially even drafting/art supplies - that still look clean and uncluttered and hide all cords and have a small footprint? oh, and all electronics should be accessible as is - none of this pulling it out of a drawer and hooking it up every time i need to scan a letter. oh, and not look like some lame-o design from office depot? and can it not look visually like it weighs eight tons?

not hard, right?

the closest thing i ever found was a discontinued three bay armoire from hold everything/west elm that was going for almost two thousand dollars after delivery.

we did a similar thing at our old place (http://www.hlwimmer.com/1216/dn2.jpg)... it was very workable as an office, but fortunately i didn't need to sit there all day. the back was open for wires to pass through (and better access to the window) and the emeco-style chair was/is actually more comfortable than my current aeron.

I actually think having a monitor in front of the window is very bad for the eyes. I prefer to sit next to the window so I can procrastinate. When I'm not procrastinating by surfing AT.