How to Cram a Home Office Into a Small Apartment

Is your small apartment bursting at the seams with gargantuan items such as a couch, a bed, and your kid’s Paw Patrol Lookout Tower? If so, chances are, retrofitting your personal space with a home office isn’t exactly as seamless as it may appear, no matter how high-tech your company is. But it can be done! The key is to embrace the notion that a home office is more about a state of mind than it is about real estate. Consider the following tactics:

Assign an existing table double duty. For short-term work-at-home stints, transform one end of your kitchen table or your bedroom vanity into a part-time workspace. Putting down a few office essentials will help stake out your work territory, suggests New York City designer Maximilian Sinsteden. For instance, a desk pad, a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, and a desk organizer may be just enough to put you in a productive mindset. At the end of the day, slip the pad behind the door or under your bed and store everything else in a decorative bin. (Sinsteden’s favorite is a rattan style, like this one; I have these sturdy fabric varieties at home.)

Squeeze in a slim desk. It doesn’t have to be an actual desk. As Cornell University ergonomics professor Alan Hedge says in our home-office guide, it simply needs to have a large enough surface area to accommodate what you need at hand—for most people, a laptop—and be 28 to 30 inches above the floor. That means it can be as little as 20 inches (or less) deep and as wide as you have room for along an unused stretch of wall. For instance, I’ve pushed a small table against the far wall of my living room and “floated” my couch a few feet in front of it to delineate my “office” from the rest of the space. (You can also use a room divider; Wirecutter hasn’t tested any yet, but we think light, peek-a-boo models can help keep your space open and airy.) If you prefer less furniture, use your mini desk as a side table or nightstand (as West Elm does in this arrangement) when your work is done.

Find a chair that tucks in neatly. But keep things ergonomic. According to Hedge, when you lean 100 to 110 degrees back, your eyes should be in line with a point 2 to 3 inches below the top of the monitor frame (a laptop stand might help). Your elbows should be at 90 degrees and close to the body; your hands, flat on the keyboard. Although our office-chair picks may be a tight fit for small apartments, Wirecutter home-office writer Melanie Pinola suggests looking at the Humanscale Freedom, which has adjustable arms. If your desk side-hustles as a side table or nightstand, grab a dining-table chair or some other existing height-appropriate one.

Affix a desk to the entryway wall. That’s where most people have unused space, notes New York City designer and Hangology founder Martin Hughes—and it’s perfect for a standing desk. We’ve spotted laptop-appropriate models that, when unused, fold up to the wall flat or into a ledge (the latter of which we haven’t yet tested).

Go paperless. Most people already have. (If you want to as well, read Wirecutter’s guide to a paperless home office.) You then end up with less use for a full-size printer, in which case a portable model will do. (We haven’t tested such models yet, but Sinsteden loves his Epson portable). A portable printer takes up less space on a desk and can also stash easily into a bin. Opt for an online faxing service and a mobile scanning app.

Float your shelves. Slim varieties that attach to the wall above or adjacent to your desk have no footprint and provide alternative or additional storage to your bin. Although we haven’t tested such shelves yet, we do think it’s a good idea to opt for unfussy designs (like this model) along with color-coordinated boxes and files (like this design) to keep your hard-working small space uncluttered.

Keep your lamp simple. Fortunately, adequate lighting can come in small packages. A clean silhouette, like that of our desk lamp pick, won’t look out of place on a small desk. And if you’re using your kitchen or folding table as your desk, the lamp will store nicely in your bin.

Tame the cables. For work hubs that don’t have an outlet, opt for extension cords that blend well into the decor. Our indoor extension cord pick is more attractive than most and has a flat plug that sits flush against the outlet for a secure connection.